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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 3:00 pm
by Jonathan
geolemon wrote:My old favorites "wish I owned a pair" were one of Martin Logan's most entry level model... a smaller floorstanding set, the Martin Logan "Clarity" model.
Of course, I'm never sitting still when I'm at home - I hardly have "dedicated listening sessions" where I plant my butt in some sweet spot- that's one huge reason I'm a fan of these - the dipole effect of that panel really sounds natural.
(my 32 NSB's I picked up are going into a line-array dipole)
And at $1700, they were acheivable, not too horrible.
But after this year's CES, I've found something that makes the ML stuff sound like Bose (and this, in a world where big price jumps usually account for subtleties in quality).
Check these out, if you want to be absolutely blown away by a speaker:
http://www.bolzanovilletri.com
Unbelievable. My favorites are now a $4,000 set, that quite literally blew everything out of the water at CES - even sets like TAD's behemoth flagship with the Beryllium coincident-source drivers, McIntosh's $85,000 line array towers, Focal's $80,000 Grand Utopia cabinets, and even MBL's $90,000 Radialstrahlers (which would be the closest to accomplishing the same sort of spacial illusionary trickery).
If you want to be blown away by realism and dimensionality, that's the one.
The head engineer was demoing a simple stereo pair, in a small side room off their main room (Alexia Park complex).
Unlike most of the other exhibitors, I noticed a lack of exotic wall treatments - in fact none at all.
Unlike most of the other exhibitors, there was also a lack of uber-high-end exotic cabling, $20,000 pairs of monoblock tube amps, or other outragious gear - just a CD player leading to a 50x2 solid state amp.
(I heard the Torre, part of their Campanile series, if you click their website - the smaller of the two floorstanders in the set)
It's not hard to picture how the speaker works - it truly sets up a 360 degree radiating pattern - just like how sound naturally occurs, like a musician plucking a string, or a stick hitting a drum.
Never before have I been in a situation where my ears made me suspect my eyes were what was lying to me... it seriously was that dimensional, and realistic.
What's amazing is that the best sounding systems are ALWAYS the ones that follow the K.I.S.S. principle. I'm not big on all the enormous line arrays and such. Thanks for the find, I may try and demo these if there's a dealer anywhere around here. Those things look gorgeous.
I can see the DIYers looking for white papers now...
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 3:17 pm
by Jonathan
Wow, only 2 US dealers. New York and Minnesota
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 3:22 pm
by OnYrMrk
Well Geo is in NY, so maybe we can do a group buy...LOL
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 3:25 pm
by Jonathan
OnYrMrk wrote:Well Geo is in NY, so maybe we can do a group buy...LOL
*puts "For Sale" sign on wife's car*
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 3:30 pm
by OnYrMrk
already has "for sale" sign on motorcycle.
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 4:11 pm
by Jonathan
Seriously, though, how was the sound quality (imaging aside)? I've heard the Bolzano Villetri's are "unique" (and I don't think they meant that in a good way) as far as sound goes, but of course the imaging allows you to experience them from more than one position. Depends on what you're going for, though.
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 4:23 pm
by Jonathan
The other thing I want to know:
Can Italians actually make anything ugly?
I haven't seen many examples of their "uglier" designs in existence.
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:19 pm
by solacedagony
Thanks a ton for the input guys. I don't really know what half those words you were talking about mean, but maybe after I write this paper, I'll be able to at least know how the ones in my car work... And maybe I'll have a hint as to what those words mean! Haha, thanks again.
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:35 pm
by geolemon
Jonathan wrote:Wow, only 2 US dealers. New York and Minnesota
The one in New York is actually a friend of mine - we were at CES together, and auditioned them together - we were tipped off by an old associate of his, someone he worked with when he worked at Harmon (JBL division - he worked on the GTI subwoofer with DDD technology actually - another dual-gap technology, not that I like dual gap or anything..
).
He was so impressed he picked up the line.
He was actually the first US dealer, signing up at the show.
This is their first year showing at CES, I anticipated actually by now there would be a lot of dealers!
But in all fairness, we wouldn't have checked them out either, if not for being tipped off and sent in.
Yes, I can
definitely get you a set, or get you here to audition a set.
If you are interested, ask for Eric at Theater Pro - and please do tell him I sent you there! He'd get a chuckle out of that, knowing how much I hang on these forums.
Secret: He's an old-school car audiophile too.
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:36 pm
by GlassWolf
order a book called "The Loudspeaker Cookbook" for starters.
if you want words defined, go to google and type:
define:yourwordhere
or ask us.
we have as much fun answering those questions as most do reading the answers :)