The best thing happening to audiophiles on a budget is the rise of Chinese high-end audio manufacturing. Even for those who aren’t on a budget, there are products like the
Opera Consonance Droplet LP5.0MKII Turntable and Stand for an MSRP of $5,700, or the Jolida Musical Envoy products. I know it’s hurting some Western manufacturers who would charge at least three times the price for a similar product, but that’s not my problem. And it’s definitely not the problem of the guy on the street who wants good sound at a reasonable price.
The offerings from Grant Fidelity of Canada, importer for Shengya, are geared to the budget minded audiophile. Their motto is: "Hi-End, Not High Priced". Good! Products that sound good can be dirt cheap, especially digital, cables and hybrid amps. What’s more problematic, much more actually, are good sounding budget speakers. I’ve heard speakers costing well north of $10K that sounded flawed, so how do you build a competent speaker for under $2K? What choices do you have and what are your limitations on build quality? To find a budget speaker that doesn’t do something horribly wrong is somewhat rare.
The V-218 struck me as a much heavier and better built speaker than I was anticipating. From the screwed on back panel (done just like a professional studio product), to the “salad-bowl” horn, to the quality of the binding posts, the whole product seemed professional grade, like a prettier Urei or Altec studio monitor.
The inputs are jumpered high- and low-frequency binding posts, which allow for bi-wiring, which I did with the Furutech Reference speaker cables. As usual, I preferred bi-wiring and used this connection method throughout the review.
Somewhat counterintuitive (to me at least) were the specs. (See above.)
I was thinking that they’d be more efficient, with less bass extension and 8 ohms. Their design seems more main stream as opposed to the high-efficiency, high-impedance designs that are coming into vogue for tube-amp usage. The choice to go for a bass reflex loading, using a traditional crossover design, makes these speakers more attractive to a wider range of listeners, though I tend to disagree with the assertion that they are a good choice for 20 transistor watts or 10 tube watts. In my experience, they come to life with no less than 20 tube watts.
One thing the Shengya isn’t is shielded. The manual recommends against placing these near a monitor or putting magnetic materials on top of the cabinets, audio tapes for instance.
They were packed in double boxes, with Styrofoam inserts. Unpacking and setup was easy. As stated previously, I preferred the sound of bi-wiring, using Furutech speaker cables after a brief comparison with another single-wired cable (single wire). Sent for use in this review were nicely built and very sturdy, damped and affordable stands from Skylan; highly recommended. I listened in the large room and the bedroom, using a wide range of equipment. Sources included the Soundsmith Sussurro cartridge and Peter’s new MCP2 phono stage, SME V arm, Denon DP80 in custom plinth, really affordable digital sources, Allnic L1500 or StereoKnight Passive Magnetic line stages, rebuilt Dynaco MKIV monoblocks (probably 50 watts), super-modded HeathKit W4 monoblocks (20 watts), and Sanders Sound System ESL transistor amp (at 450 watts into the 6 ohm load, much more power than recommended, but didn’t blow up the speakers, even though I tried). Most listening was done with the Allnic L1500 and Sanders ESL amp.
I preferred these with moderate toe-in in the big system, which is how most of the listening was done. They were toed in about 20º, and were intersecting at least 10’ behind the listening position. When firing directly at the listening position, a presence peak was exacerbated. If placed straight ahead, the indirect room sound started to intrude. Twenty degrees of toe-in seemed optimal for the large room. The big horn on the tweeter means wide dispersion, and that they are rather easy to place to get some kind of sound-staging. Though, like other speakers, careful tweaking can maximize depth and soundstage results. In the small room, they were place forward, and sometimes with a little toe-OUT (opposite of toe-in, you see?).
Another option worth considering is dramatic toe-in: crossing the speakers several feet in front of the listening position. I also got good results this way, but it robbed the outside images to help the center image. Actually, positioned this way, the center image was fantastic; almost as good as I’ve heard in my system. It’s always worth experimenting, as your room may be dramatically different from mine.
Listening Notes
The Booker T Set by Booker T. and the M.G.s (Stax/Fantasy vinyl reissue MPS-8531) had great tone coming from Steve Cropper’s guitar and Booker T Jones’ B3 was gutsy and sonorous. This made for some enjoyable power-listening. “Sing A Simple Song” had a great center image and excellent stereo spread. The drumming of the great Al Jackson Jr. well outside and behind the right speaker and was in a large resonant acoustic space. The B3 held center projecting out into a V shaped wedge in the listening room.
On “Roadhouse Blues” from
Morrison Hotel (original press), there was good imaging and a warm tonal balance. The Shengya’s were forgiving of the vinyl noise and I kept cranking it until I was fully immersed in the greatness of The Doors. “Waiting For The Sun” had tremendous growl from the synthesizer, and the dynamic swings were fairly stunning on this track. The only limiting factor was a slight peak in the presence region, coming from the horn loaded tweeter. That’s the only thing that kept me from the kind of head banging I could do with the Sanders 10B.
I noticed on rock vinyl that these have the sound of a really good PA or studio monitor system (like Altec VOTT systems with tube amps, or their studio cousins). They gave many classic tracks a live quality that I didn’t know was there.
The Byrds (Untitled), original pressing, was a toe tapper. “Chestnut Mare” moved along with great forward momentum. The live cuts on the album did sound “live” in an organic way. Many live tracks sound dead in a lot of systems. I’ve found that the better a system gets, the more you can get from a live recording. On “So You Want To Be a Rock ‘N’ Roll Star” and “Mr. Tambourine Man” had totally different meanings when compared to the original studio tracks. The presence of the Shengya’s made the most of live recordings.
