So, I’ve been the whole day today with my best audio and classical concert buddy.
I’m more interested in the last word about loudspeaker systems than electronics or anything else, since they’re actually overwhelmingly determining a sound system’s signature.
And here are my winners:
Sixth:
Aries Cerat - literally only within a tiny sweet spot of a cubic inch in shown position, the speakers completely vanished for a nicely lifelike stage, wide and deep with good dynamics - but not everywhere else…
Fifth:
Diptyque - isodynamic planar drivers, mid-range quasi ribbons and true tweeter ribbons with effortless dynamics, very good extension in the frequency extremes, but suboptimal placement, so imaging suffered a bit.
Fourth:
Audio NEC - their dual paper roll dipole midrange driver with spiderless vertical voice coil runs effortlessly from 400Hz to 10kHz, transporting the heart of the music like few others; plenty bass chassis augment the low end and a supertweeter takes care of the sparkle. All together throw a nice wide and deep soundstage, if not exactly pin point.
A decade ago, they showed a speaker with a less refined looking version of that midrange, augmented by a smaller such tweeter, combined with a huge square planar dipole woofer - it had been my winner for that show by large!
Third:
Piega - unfortunately the little sister of the much hoped for Master Line Source showed up only, but enticing nevertheless. Solid soundstage, wonderful sounding dipole isodynamic mid-high “coaxial” drivers.
Second:
ESD Acoustic - their all out assault horn system, heroic construction, by far the largest venue, effortlessly filled with lifelike dynamics, clean highs, rock solid bass, fluid midrange, seamlessly integrated, beautiful sound stage listening to a large orchestral piece - wow.
And my winner is:
Stein Music - only with the third from the top of their Bob line (damn), the next one up standing silently behind. But still, today’s most seamless integration of the whole spectrum with absolutely razor sharp, pin point 3D soundstage, no matter where along the central axis between the speakers you were, drivers absolutely dissolved. Open baffle bass easily shaking the room without any overhang - all music examples presented at just the right volume levels (compared to most other exhibits just overdoing it, behaving like they were in a testicle contest…).
Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s it …
Looked at and listened to a lot of other fun stuff, had some nice manufacturer chit chat, and for actually not planning on going, really enjoyed myself - rounded it all off in the Biergarten with my buddy, felt like the first summer day this year …