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GR Research LS9 Loudspeaker Review

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Imaging is where things can be dicey for line-sources, and the LS9 is no exception. Needless to say, this is dependent on the recording. Where the LS9 really shines is with complex recordings: big band jazz, orchestral, large choral, Phil Spector-of-death’s “wall of sound”, and so-on. The larger or more densely packed the music, the more the LS9’s shine. On the other hand, a small acoustic ensemble, jazz or classical, will sound larger than life. Solo vocals, or vocals with sparse accompaniment, cast an image much larger than real. Ella has a massive mouth, for instance. You can adjust the volume down to somewhat compensate. The truth is, a single microphone should probably be reproduced by a single (mono) point-source speaker, not a stereo pair of speakers, standing almost 7’ tall. It’s the limitation of all line-source and big-panel design, and is the only performance issue that is unsolvable. Equally impossible is a pair of full-range drivers recreating the sound of a symphony orchestra. All the ultra-pricey full-range drivers, that sound great with Ella, proceed to fall apart when asked to recreate the size and volume of a symphony orchestra. Both extremes in speaker art/science have proper applications and deliver state-of-the-art performance from certain recordings. What can I say other than you must have two systems, or two sets of speakers in your system? Or, don’t worry about it and pick the technology that best suits your musical tastes. I know one guy who has huge direct-drive ESLs on one end of the room, and a minimalist horn setup on the other. He plays some recordings on different sides of the room. Okay, “blah blah blah” about being able to reproduce a string quartet. Big deal. The quartet still sounds really good, the timbre and detail being first rate, but a little larger than life.

Numerous Decca classical recordings emphasized the ability of the LS9 to put images well outside and behind the speakers. On my LP of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the first track of side two, “Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell”, the LS9 did a spectacular job of presenting three different acoustic spaces at once: the weird boink noises that remind me of a massive ship’s horn in a harbor (it sounds that big); the backing tracks which are just behind and all the way outside both channels, and the vocals, which were centrally located, compact and slightly in front of the speakers. Regardless of how loud I played the cut, the relative positions of the acoustic spaces were maintained. The same thing goes for “Radiohead”, and every other densely populated track with multiple layers of spaces, whether artificially generated or real. The usual scenario is that at low levels, you can hear all these different sound fields, only for it to collapse when you turn up the volume. The only reason that scenario would play out is lack of amplifier power. I would say that the large size of these speakers will cause some images to be artificially diffuse and less distinct, but mostly that applies to closely mic’d vocals.

The bass is good enough that I would never consider adding a subwoofer. And, it’s immediately obvious when you have electronics with rolled-off bass, as I mentioned above. If massive bass is your love, you’ll get more oomph when pairing the LS9 with a large transistor amp. That’s not a revelation about tubes or transistors. Transformers saturate sooner as the frequency drops, all things being equal. And, if you maximize a transformer for good bass, then the treble extension suffers. It’s why the silver transformers in the Audio Note amps are famous, along with some highly complicated windings of days gone by: they somehow manage to get bass and treble and keep the response into significant power. With my old Maggies, my departed Vandersteens, and every other speaker I’ve tested with the exception of the Sanders ESL, it was sometimes difficult to clearly hear the differences between amps and preamps in the deep bass. With the LS9, differences were immediately obvious.

With all the talk of loudness, you might get the impression that the LS9 can’t play softly. That’s not the case. They don’t speak as quickly, as softly, and with as much resolution as the Feastrex equipped MaxxHorns, but were clearer and more distinct than any planar speaker I’ve used. I heard a little sluggishness in the bass, where the mass of the drivers seemed to present some difficulties for some tube amps. At higher volumes, the sluggishness was either inaudible or gone, tubes or transistors. I’m not saying these speakers are sluggish. They can be that way with tubes because of the low damping factor of most tube amps. With a current-rich transistor amp, things should be cleaner and faster at low volumes. This is the dark side of a complicated crossover and lots of drivers, and the reason a single-driver solution has a strong following with the SEDHT crowd. In the midrange and treble, the BG mid/tweets were always fast and clear, regardless of volume.

I’ve already mentioned that these speakers can plumb the depths. The highs are not quite as sky-high as the bass is low. The BG driver doesn’t quite have the shimmer of a good ribbon, but it’s nearly there. The diaphragm is very light and well damped. In contrast, many ribbons are free floating, with very little holding them place. The BG’s damped diaphragm pushes up the mid-highs over the ultra-high overtones at times. With stringed instruments, it favored the fundamental and wood resonance of the body, over the sound of the bow and the highest overtones. Rest assured, they go high enough to make sounds only small animals can hear, and much higher than full-range drivers, including ESLs.

The overall sound is very transparent, with a little emphasis in the deep bass, which can be tailored with the bass response filter network, and a slightly recessed midrange. The best amp for these speakers would be powerful tube amps, preferably push-pull low distortion designs. It needs decent damping for best performance in the bass and to bring the bass and treble characteristics into balance. Also, tubes will give much more dimensional results in the mids than the majority of transistor amps.

GR Research LS9

2 Responses to GR Research LS9 Loudspeaker Review


  1. Joe Lepo says:

    I found the discourse on these speakers both educational and inspiring; I was working on editing a scientific manuscript and had to just STOP and read the whole post. This is not a good thing… or maybe it is. It reminded me of my teenage obsession with Klipsch-horns; loved all the technical detail. My home theater is not even close in quality to the AVS forum posting of featured HT that used these speakers. But my friends, family and I enjoy my system immensely and I am afraid serious upgrades are in my future.
    Thanks for this.

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