Acoustic Zen Crescendo

adamaley,

Roger recommended the standard EML 300B in my LM508IA and those are the ones I used as well as the Sophia 300B Mesh Plates; the EMLs are more transparent/dynamic but the Sophia's are more organic sounding and musical...

Wig

Any new Crescendo owners love to share their experience with this speaker? I'm considering upgrading to it this year. It's between these and the Coincident Total Victory Vs for me. Are the long-term owners still loving their Crescendos?

Thanks wig for the feedback. I ordered a pair of the EML XLS and should have them tomorrow.

I've had the Crescendo 2's for about 8 months and love them.  My Ayre V-5xe amp was a real mismatch - glare, over detailed harmonies and light bass.  I was scratching my head on where to look first, cables or amp (It turned out to be both).  I then home auditioned a Pass Labs XA25 (as in 25 wpc) and never looked back.  It's a terrific amp with this speaker.  Stereophile recently reviewed the XA25 and bench measurements show clipping occurs at 80 wpc @  8 Ohms and 130 wpc @ 4 Ohms.  !  Their definition of clipping is when THD + noise equals 1% distortion.  
Changing out the tonearm cable was the icing on the cake.

That's great to hear that you found your desired match for these speakers. It just goes to show how different amp topologies can provide satisfaction with the same speaker.  I recently got to listen to the Crescendos with my LM 508ia and the sound was riveting.