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MartinLogan Motion 4 vs Gallo A'Diva


I have a fancy system and all that, but sometimes just want to listen to the news and that's an awful lot of power to draw from the wall just to casually watch nonsense TV or news type stuff.

My plasma has 6-8 ohm speaker outs, so I'd like to add some kind of super-small speaker at low cost. I've been running, in this form, some old cambridge soundworks and they have been fine, but are 15+ years old and the high end is super-tinny, basically unlistenable.

So I am wondering, I know this is lower-end than most of what goes on here, but I'd like to spend not more than these cost and am open to other models, but can't be more expensive or larger.

What do people think? I slightly lean towards the A'Diva at this point, but am not 100% sure.

This might actually be a common use-case, so maybe lots of you have thought about simple computer/tv speakers for non-super-high-end use. Note that several computer speakers don't quite go loud enough for this application - many of those are optimized for a 2- 4 foot listening distance.
lightminer
kkm
124 posts
 
There's a pair of new white Gallo Due's for $750 at ebay, which would perform better than the A'Diva's.
lightminer OP
164 posts
 
I'll check that out! There are a pair of black ones here at a very reasonable price, but I placed some black thing here on the mantel as a test and can't do black.

I can get a sense of the total watts my system uses tomorrow. My wife works at home sometimes, as do I, and we are opt to keep some background music through comcast on at 30 or 40 db so the system can be on for 10 hrs per day, so its not like just 3 hrs at night max. Also my amp is pure Class A, so lots of watts. That said, it is a small Class A, not like some of the ones out there.

Orb looks cool, I like the idea of leveraging a high end company like Gallo, but yeah, I have heard good things about Orb. I have also heard things along the lines of the progression listed above, that sounds very reasonable.
no_money
638 posts
 
Just saying, If I had those Maggies....(and system) I would be hard pressed to listen to a tv thru another speaker... : )
summitav
163 posts
 
You may also find that the "tinny problem" is not the speakers, but the amp in the TV.
lightminer OP
164 posts
 
Yeah, I did some tests, and obviously the DAC/pre/amp in the TV is less quality than my main system, but I actually put the really old speakers on my main system, and they were really really bad.

I'm at just under 1000 watts everything running, and might add another amp (active bi-amping of speakers) which actually could be another 1000 watts. So that running all day many days adds up...

I really like the Due, and actually almost bought a dented pair from a local dealer last year for this purpose, but I think smaller is good. But, yeah, Due is a great speaker.

I'm strongly leaning towards A'Diva Ti right now.

As another experiment per the last comment, I may try to hook up Maggie 3.6s to the TV out. I have to get some skinny cable, however, as the TV out only takes something like 22 gauge wire. My Kimber 8 gage or whatever it is won't fit :).
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