- falconquest
Aeris speakers were finally delivered yesterday. Woo Hoo!
I had 25-30 year old Focus and PSA 250 Delta amps. I bought the M700's after one of the 250's decided to quit working. I hooked up the M700's and at first thought they sounded pretty good. After living with them for a time, a harshness and sibilance on the upper end really started to bug me. I think it was compounded by my room but at any rate I started out trying to solve the issue. As the midwoofers seemed to be the worst offenders I inspected them and could tell there were a few problems with a couple of them and I decided to replace all the upper drivers. With help from Brice at Legacy, I bought and replaced all the drivers. End result was better but there still was a quality on the upper end I didn't care for. Enter the PL Evo 400 preamp. It did soften up things a bit (and the triode mode was good for some recordings) but it still wasn't where I wanted it. Enter the PL amp. Biamped the speakers and had better results but still not completely pleased. The M700's seemed to do a good job on the lower end as I had added an attenuator to control the boominess somewhat. I finally decided that the room was all that was left to fix. Ordered the Aeris, sold the Focus, and sold the M700's. I just didn't feel the M700's were for me. Made the upper end sound sort of sterile and not engaging. My opinion is at this time a class D amp is not for me. I liked the smaller package and they do pack some power but found the musicality missing as compared to the old 250's and the PL. As class D continues to evolve I might give them another shot down the line.
Set up the Aeris yesterday evening and I must say that in my limited listening to them so far, I was completely blown away. Best sounds I've ever had. I have not put the PL preamp into the mix yet and haven't really driven the PL amp hard. So far I'm impressed with how the PL has driven them but am suspecting monoblocking another PL may be needed, try a different tube amp with more power, or might go back to SS. I will take a few weeks or so to decide what direction to go.
Happy listening with those Focus! I always felt they were good speakers....
