I have a pair of R3s driven by a Pass Aleph 3, sourced by a Mark Levinson 390s (no preamp), in one of my systems. All the cabling is Cardas Golden Cross. The R3s sound nicely extended on the high end, with the ribbons imparting a light, feathery touch of detail to cymbals and a sense of air around the instruments. On the low end, they go surprisingly deep for minimonitors, well into the mid bass. I supplement them with a Sunfire True Sub Mark II, crossed over at the upper end of the low bass range. The R3s weak point is their midrange, which I feel is a little hollow. No real coloration, but rather somewhat depressed in level and the sound not as full as I had expected. Vocalists seemed to be singing from the back of the stage, rather than up front. I sometimes have the sense that the design asks too much of the drivers, seeking to be full range at the frequency extremes and leaving something of a gap in the midrange, although this may be overstating the case just for illustration. Perhaps what I have described would be complementary to tube amplification, which might have a more prominent midrange. Over all, despite my impressions of the midrange, I regard them as pretty good speakers and am generally happy with their performance.
