New Gallo 3.5's

Appears the new 3.5's are more tube friendly. http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/gallo9/ref35_3.html

Not sure that dopogue or dfwatt are still reading this thread due to the big time gap, but I did have some questions/comments on some of the dialog above:

1. For both of you, in the tests that you performed (Doug with resonance damping material and Dave with Mapleshade base), you were both switching between R & L speakers (I think). How do you account for the physical locations of the two speakers potentially biasing your listening tests? In other words, especially WRT bass response, which you were both focusing on, isn't it very likely that if you A/B-ed an identical right/left pair, that you would notice a significant difference in bass performance between the two locations?

2. Dave - in your Radio Shack SPL meter testing in which you stated the speakers on Mapleshade bases were remarkably flat to 20 Hz, can you elaborate on your test method? Did you take the speaker outdoors to eliminate room boundary interaction? Did you average your results over several mic positions? I don't mean to sound skeptical, but I have owned 3.0's since they initially came out and have always found their bass below 50-60 Hz to anemic. My frame of reference is a pair of Carver Amazings that have a much more robust bass response, despite being open baffle.

To all, I'm also very interested in hearing the 3.5's. I understand from one of the 6moons articles that Gallo will offer to upfit the 3.0/1 speakers of existing customers to the 3.5 configuration for the delta in cost between the two. Any thoughts on going that route instead of buying the 3.5's off the shelf?

Minus3db, I'm still around. Coincidentally, I picked today to move the Gallos around after a group of audiobuddies found that they sounded best from BEHIND the sofa. Trust me, I can't move the (sectional) sofa. So I just got some of those furniture moving things to put under the Mapleshade cones on the bases and am playing with positioning. Not sure where things will end up.

1. I have no response to this. Not even sure what you're saying.

2. The SPL meter is used in conjunction with a Rives CD that is calibrated to compensate for the errors inherent in the meter. I used it on a tripod at the listening position but, believe me, once the meter told me I was flat way down to the 20s I didn't move ANYTHING, despite my own skepticism.

I am hoping that upgrade info is true because I certainly want to take advantage of it, if only because the tweeters on my Ref 3s look like they have boils instead of a "patina."

Dave

Hi Dave, thanks for the quick response!

Let me try to clarify my 1st question.

This is from a previous post of yours up in this thread:

A fellow owner and friend brought over one of his stock Ref 3s and after getting a fix on how my "new" pair sounded, we substituted his for the left speaker with mine as the right speaker, then played a variety of mono stuff. Using the balance control on the remote of my Aesthetix Rhea phonostage, I can quickly switch from left only to balanced to right only. It was uncanny. In balanced mode, we could hardly tell the stock speaker was playing!

So my question is: Wouldn't the fact that the 2 speakers, one with the MS base and one without, were in physically different locations in the room (where you normally have your L & R speakers) significantly affect the bass response you would hear when listening to one speaker at a time? Where you place the speaker affects the room response. I was just curious if you had attempted to calibrate that out by listening to or measuring two identical speakers, one at a time, installed at those same locations.

The effects you describe make me want to go buy a pair of those bases! I'm just naturally skeptical.

Okay, I should have looked at that old thread, but i'm still a little unclear. We put my friend's left speaker (the one without the Mapleshade base) in exactly the same location where my own left speaker originally sat. We were both then struck by the fact that his speaker appeared to be missing, relative to the way they were both projecting sound. My speaker (with the Mapleshade base) simply appeared to be substantially fuller-bodied than his. We didn't do detailed tests beyond this. The difference was so obvious that he ordered the bases for himself that same afternoon.