I agree with you, Whitestix. The M4TS speakers are indeed stellar.
I never had any issue with the Gallo 3.5s esthetics. I liked the way they looked and their slimness really helped them disappear. It was hard to believe that such a wide deep sound stage was coming from such small speakers. To me they seemed like two stylistic poles or, perhaps, sculptures that sonically weren't doing anything at all.
The M4TS have that same wide deep sound stage with even better holographics in that soundstage. And they have just as wide a sweet spot as the 3.5s. The M4TS too do a great disappearing act especially when the soundstage goes way beyond, not only the speakers, but, most often, beyond all the walls. But being dimensionally wider they sometimes don't disappear as surrealistically as the 3.5s did.
But they definitely do two things that the 3.5s were absolutely incapable of.
1. Room interaction: the MT4S needed no correction whatsoever.
2. Unlike others, I never really felt that the 3.5s' image was too low, but when I stood up, the highs virtually fell of and I found myself looking down at the speakers.
To my ears, not only so the M4TS image overall higher, but when I stand up the image rises with me... that is, I get the exact same image standing on my feet as I do when I am seated... no treble fall off, no looking down at the speakers.
If you have not noticed this as of yet, when you are seated in front of the just close you eyes and stand up keeping them closed. You will see what I mean.
There is a poster on AudioCircle who has talked with Clayton and he has suggested that the M3/M4 can be upgraded for better sound by making a super external crossover with world class parts and wiring and hardwire the wires to the crossover parts so that the only connector is the push on connector to the driver. This would allow for connecting the crossover in 10 minutes, and according to him it would make the M3/M4s much better speakers. He feels that the actual crossover and wiring used in the TS are good but nowhere as good as they could be for a little more money. He also suggest that the resistor on the tweeter and the coils and caps and wiring being all in the signal path could be replaced with higher resolution parts which would take the speakers to new levels of resolution and clarity and dynamics. He says that the stock wiring is inside the speaker frame and that this is not ideal and is neither the fact that the stock crossover is vibrating with the speaker. Having a separate crossover box that is damped off the floor with the wiring going straight to the drivers is optimal for best sound. He also suggests adding constrained layer damping material to the back of the large stamped frame woofers. Clayton could precut pieces so that all you would have to do would be to peel off the backing and apply. All of which would make for even cleaner bass, warmer sound, more natural sound and clearer upper midrange would result.
I wrote to Clayton a couple of months ago and asked him if there was any merit to the idea and if he was considering doing such an upgrade. He replied that he plans to look into this idea but right now he is too involved in setting up the X1 production to meet all the demands for the new speaker so he couldn't give me and details as to what the upgrade might include, as of yet.
Although I am very happy with the M4TS present performance, if he ever does get around to this upgrade, I am going to seriously consider it. You can never get too much of a good thing.
It might interest you as well.
If I those of us who are interested in this write and asking about it every so often, he might be motivated to consider it sooner.
