Apogee Duetta Signature or Mini Grand?

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

is there any mfg. that is making a full range ribbon like the apogee's of old '????

all of my best/memorable listening experiences were with stages or duetta II signatures at the local stereo store !!!!!!

Thanks for the responses guys!

Well, the listening room these would be in is 15' X 13', definitely on the small side for dipole speakers. If I were to commit to a pair of Apogees, I would have to commit fully to them. That means purchase the right type of amplifier, whatever that is, Henry Ho's, Krells, big Jadis monos - whatever. The Divas were never really an option due to the room size, and I am not 100% sure that the smaller speakers are still not too large for me in this application.

The dancing mid/treble ribbons of the Duetta Signatures would definitely be dancing for me, I am afraid...