@whipsaw - I bought the Europe’s after reading all of the rave reviews. All I can say is every other speaker I placed in that room didn’t sound harsh and fatiguing as the Europe’s did. I guess I needed to power them with a Rowland amp, not Conrad-Johnson. I heard what I heard, and have no reason to make it up. Not sure why you think my claim dubious. |
@uncledemp It is human nature, alas. "And yet if every desire were satisfied as soon as it arose how would men occupy their lives, how would they pass the time? Imagine this race transported to a Utopia where everything grows of its own accord and turkeys fly around ready-roasted, where lovers find one another without any delay and keep one another without any difficulty: in such a place some men would die of boredom or hang themselves, some would fight and kill one another, and thus they would create for themselves more suffering than nature inflicts on them as it is." https://eafz.blogspot.com/2011/10/schopenhauer-essay-on-suffering-of.html |
There are no absolutes. Everything posted so far is purely anecdotal. I just recently listened to a speaker that sounded harsh and fatiguing on one particular amp and then simply glorious and unparalleled on another amp. Not to even mention the myriad of other components that play a role. It is not necessarily the speaker, it is rather how they matched up with certain components. |
I have owned a pair of Klipsch RP-5000 and I have auditioned the Forte IIIs. I found them both to be hard to listen to for long periods of time. The La Scalas I auditioned had a nice airy sound to them, but the sound stage and imaging were lacking. Many people say that Focals are bright. I have not found this to be true. I can listen to my Aria 936s all day and they never annoy. I power them with a Hegel H390 and use a Audiolab 6000CDT transport played through the Hegel DAC. Speakers I have owned: Infinity Kappa 7 Klipsch RP-5000 KLH Kendall Focal Aria 936 |
