Daedalus

As I haven't read Marty's Daedalus review yet (I will- I'm a subscriber but im out of state right now so cant get to the mailbox)- Nglazer, if you have, could you tell me his 'reservations' about the Ulysses? What made the review less than 'glowing'? Since I'm getting near 'live' sounding music in my humble abode especially with smaller scale works- and my emotional involvement meter is pegged (and I've heard hundreds of speakers over the years) 'enquiring' minds want to know!! Now!!

PS- I positively hated the Lowes 6 gauge cables Marty loves. I set them up as recommended and broke them in etc and... threw them out (literally) after about two months of subbing them in to different systems. Could those cables be the problem? ;)

Abramswatch,

First, I did not intend to diss any owners of this speaker. Just reporting what I read. I have not heard any Daedelus speakers. I use a pair of similarly priced speakers - Von Schweikert VR5 HSE's (not current VR5's) -- and although I think these are among the best at anything near their price, I am sure many would differ with me on this.

MDW reported that notwithstanding two 7" woofers, they don't plumb the bass depths and the bottom octave is missing. He found the bass on the VMPS RM40's, at less than half the price, to be deeper and the VMPS having greater ambient air than the Ulysses and capturing decay better than the Ulysses.

That said, he also paid several compliments to the speaker, especially its transparaent mid-range and smooth treble. So, it was a nice review but not a glowing one.
And I too am skeptical of his use of Lowes wire as speaker cable, but he did rave about LessLoss PC's, with which I agree. He is like any other reviewer in this regard: sometimes they are on point, sometimes off-base.

Neal

Nglazer,

Thanks for your comments and I hope if you come out to the RMAF you will find time to stop in and say hi.
I would like to clarify and correct a couple of errors in the BFS article that is being quoted. First the sensitivity is 97db not 93db as written, also his assumptions about the crossover points are considerably off.

As for the bass, it is not "missing" nor did Marty say that. (the Ulysses is -2db @ 28hz with a smooth slope below that.) I have always felt that the range from 20-30hz is best handled by a sub if one really wants a flat response in that range. This is simply my design approach and I do this because I do not want to compromise the musicality of the bass range of music (30hz -200hz). Again just my approach, not saying it's the only way...

Also as a few have already mentioned his 'cables' are not the best match for a neutral speaker. I have found with these speakers that cables make a HUGE difference in the aspects of phase, air, stage and detail. I have recently changed to Cardas posts because I found they improved all these areas, the point being that the posts are in a sense a continuation of the cables and if it didn't matter we could use cheap copper posts and get the same transparency, which is clearly not the case.

All that being said I think it is a good review and he appreciated the dynamic and musical capabilities of the speaker.

Thanks,
Lou

NGlazer, sorry if I implied you were dissing anyone - I didnt mean to! I was just wanting a bit of a preview about the Daedalus review before I get home and check it out.
I agree with Lou that the Daedaluses are either 'sensitive' to cabling or 'revealing' of its inadequacies... or both! I've for example, played around with 4 or 5 different speaker cables during the review and some have dulled things a bit (to the point of boredom actually) and some have made things too forward and some.... you get the idea.
Had I only heard the DA-RMa's with say, the QED Silver anniversary cables I have on hand, I would have thought them somewhat constrained sounding. Once I switched to the Red Wine Cables, the sound became more immediate and upfront and pacey. To my ears- it was a BIG difference. Analysis cables confused things in terms of the focus of individual instruments for example, whereas the wonderful Audio Art SE cables and the similarly wonderful Skywire cables sharpened the focus and let the music roll again!
Marty has raved about products such as the Gallos (yah- so have many) and the Lowes 6 gauge (so have few). Having heard both products at length, I do err....appreciate the Gallos. Yes- 'appreciate' is the appropriate word here. As for the Lowes cables, well, the less said the better.
So perhaps my musical tastes are not well aligned with his; which is maybe why I'm so anxious to see what 'criticisms' he might have of something I love and have chosen to live with. Maybe it'll give me a better understanding of what he values as an audiophile/insight into our differences and all that jazz?!

Having just read the BFS review, I do'nt feel it is critical at all. The problem is, reading Stereophile, TAS or HiFi+, everything is perfect, the best thing since sliced bread. This makes the magazines pretty much useless. I think Marty's review is pretty balanced. He says all speakers, all components are a set of compromises. You can't have everything. He reports the Ulysses emphasises Efficiency and dynamic contrasts, perhaps losing out on base, because of the efficiency and phase coherence. He also says he can't remember such an efficient speaker, able to cope with such high power amplifiers.
From memory, the review is more favourable than the one for the DA-1