Apogee Duetta Signature or Mini Grand?

Rgs92

I have listened to the VMPS products, one of the bigger VMPS dealers is very near my home. I also own some older VMPS speakers and Sub (not hybrid).

I think they sound very good and are a good choice for someone without the extra room that many of the Apogee models (and others) need to sound their best...the VMPS hybrids can be placed very near the front wall.

They did not sound anything like my Duetta Signatures or any of the Maggies I have listened to but did their own thing very well...integration between the two driver types is very good.

The last pair I listened to were the VMPS RM/X's, these were huge and sounded great but did not make me want to sell my Duetta Signatures...this was at the dealer and I thought the room to small for this speaker.

Had I listened in my much larger room my opinion may be different and they may have taken my Duetta Sig's apart...don't know for sure.

"magic natural vocals"

Vocals are great...not as good as the Stage for sure, of course as an X Stage owner you know that very few speakers are...including most other Apogees!

Dave

Dave, thanks! I appreciate your honest perspective. I did suspect that the Stage re-created vocals like no other reasonably priced speaker (or maybe any speaker). I just remember John Lennon, Louis Armstrong, and Joni Mitchell sounding like they were all alive & well right in my room. Grande Utopia BEs (& other megabuck speakers I heard at shows) just never equalled them in this regard. What a shame they are gone; a loss to humanity, I think...

Dave, thanks for all of your information in this thread.

I have been waiting for the right pair of Apogees to try for a while, and was conversing over the weekend with someone who seemed to know a good deal about the brand. In fact, he said the Duetta Signature might be a good option for me in the room I would place them in, as well as the Stage or Mini Grand.

However, after talking to me, in his opinion, while he loved the speakers, he felt that they were quite possibly not right for me, as these models were limited in terms of volume output. He felt to get the volume I was looking for, one needed the larger Apogees (Diva, etc.). Is this also your experience? Will these smaller models do 95 - 100 dB?

Trejla, I can't agree with your Apogee adviser. Having owned both Stage, and Duetta, I can say, with full confidence, both can shake and bake.

The Minigrand requires two amps. While it's low bass integration is not the equal of the Duetta's, the Minigrands subwoofer can rumble.

The Duetta has a higher soundstage, than the Minigrand. It is far more forgiving about placement. It's tonality is richer, but less revealing.

Trelja

I'll guess that we are not talking 95-100db peaks.

The Stage Mini Grand are out for those levels, the much larger Duetta Signatures will play very loud but are limited by their two way design as the mid/hi-freq ribbon will begin to do a wild dance at those constant spl's...(over worked) as it tries to cover a wide freq range.

The three-way designs have the edge here, the Diva would have no problem. A couple of things to know about the Diva would be:

1. It's very large and needs to be listened to at a greater distance to integrate properly...smaller rooms need not apply IMO.

2. Much more power will be needed...bi/tri-amping will be best IMO

Another thing to remember about Apogee types...Maggies..ect., they do not sound as loud as they are playing, a spl meter will confirm this.

I use my Duetta Signatures (with and without) subs in my 23'x 25'x 9' room at very loud levels at times...what size room are you going to place your speakers in Trelja?

Two of my subs are VMPS Supertowers which are really full-range speaker models (the lower section of these are the large VMPS subs. I could sell these and replace them with the large VMPS subs at no $$$ loss but have not because my thoughts have always been that I might want to use them someday for extream volume levels as full-range...they will play at insane levels!...I have not needed to do this at this point in my room and have come close only a couple of times when I thought the Duetta Sig's or my amp (not the Ksa-250)had reached it's limits.

Would I trade my Duetta Sig's for the Diva to gain higher spl's...no, they play plenty loud for me. Would I rather own a pair of Divas...sure, I have the room for them to open up and they are a better speaker system.

Dave