Sandstone has sent me a great comparison between the speakers that are mentioned here.
It's so good, I thought it needed to be share with the community.
Greetings Zman,
I finally had a chance to compare these two speakers in more detail on Sunday. It had been a while and I didn't want to speculate without hearing them again on my most recent systems. We know the Titus is almost holistic in its imaging. My main concern was whether the Comete tweeters were accomplishing any of their upper end smoothness by rolling off high end extension and also whether the Cometes overall gave up anything in order to provide their much warmer, very coherent midrange and upper bass.
Wow, I just noticed that you scored what looks like a great deal on a pair of Cometes already, so I 'll spare you most of the particulars.
But I ran both speaker sets through two different systems, using some very good music and some godawful test tones. My smaller room is 10x10x 8.5 and not bad acoustically but is prob. a distant second to yours. My amplification is all SS, though the Ayre Ax-7E has some set-like properties, with the Ayre QB-9 as source and balanced, zero-feedback config. For second system, my small Jeff Rowland seems to team up well with direct balanced feeds from a Bel Canto Dac.
First test was constant volume tone sweeps to well above audible range. Results - on both of my setups, perceived ( not measured) loudness was surprisingly uniform all the way up to my audible hearing limit of about 17kHz.
Second test was imaging placement in 3-D space, with a white sound (treble) source. Well, Titus is hard to beat for this. But the J Rowland setup required lots of tweaking, and still there was noticeable sibilance/"brightness". Titus with Ayre is clean and just holistic, not sure why.
Dropping the Cometes in, I lost a bit of the pinpoint precision I was getting for the treble imaging sweeps. Not much, but some. Not sure why. Crossover is at 6kHz for Titus, but couldn't find this info for Comete. Speaker height was different as Cometes are 4 inches taller, and they have a more resonant cabinet. Speaker placement may have been key, as I keep the Cometes only about 33" from wall.
So the new tweeter hasn't given up anything significant on the high end that I can see. It's more phase aligned with the woofer and less sibilant overall.
Third, I ran some low frequency sweeps that bore out what we already know about the Titus, but had some surprises in store with the Comete. The Titus predictably dropped off a sonic cliff at about 55 dB with both of my setups. The Comete was fine at 45-50 dB, but it still sounded about half as loud at even 30 dB! Now I can't tell you whether these are just overtones, but with real music the bass response is a true hidden gem and is worth enhancing. I have a good subwoofer, but don't find the need to use it with these speakers. Even if you do use your sub, the lower crossover will let the Cometes do what they do best in upper bass and midrange.
With Comete, your holistic soundstage is still there in spades, but it's different. Imaging seems slightly less for higher pitches , but IMO is more than compensated by realism and placement of lower pitched instruments that is apparent as you play actual music. The transient response with great attack and decay is still there, and you never get the feeling that these speakers are ever trying to catch up. Vocals, piano, guitar and cello are just palpable and real.
Ok, on a much more subjective note, I think that you are in for a real treat. The Cometes are utterly coherent, musical, and a real joy to own. I think they are underappreciated and a steal at anything less than $625. They should work great with your room size. I can only dream of what they will sound like with your Almarra and that highly optimized room.
A short list of suggestions:
- Breakin is less than with 202s but still need 50+ hours even with used.
- Replace the stock flat metal plug connectors.
- You may be able to now return to another tube preference with less rolloff.
- Consider trying slightly closer wall placements if bass nodes for room work out. Soundstage didn't seem to suffer that much, and it may be worth it to balance out the upper bass.
Whew! This is so long, I think I'll just email. I hope some of this helps, and wish you the absolute best in your explorations. Apologies for the delay, but I'm longing for the time when life is less frenetic and we can all spend unlimited time on more important things, like Audio! Let me know if there are other issues that I can help pursue, and I'm looking forward to hearing of your results.
Best regards,
(Sandstone)
