Rob Wasserman’s Duets
I carried this recording all around the 2013 (4th) California Audio Show, using it to evaluate systems. Very few of the systems at any price could hold it all together when I played the cut “Angel Eyes.” On this cut, Cheryl Bentyne’s voice goes from very soft to very loud then back down to almost a whisper, and then explodes to end the cut. It is a real test of a system’s dynamics, harmonics, and ability to sound as good when played very softly or very loudly. At the show, more than one exhibitor, some with systems topping the $100,000 price tag, comment that the recording just wasn’t fair. Still, others, like the Acapella room, or even the very reasonably priced Fritz Speakers room, played it just wonderfully. One of the reasons I said yes to reviewing these speakers was how well they played it at the show.
Still, I wondered how will they play it with just 10 watts? The answer is even better than they did at the show. Bentyne’s voice was as pure and dynamic as I had ever heard it with more power than I had ever experienced from this cut before. Wasserman’s bass also sounded fast and incredibly visceral.
Miles Davis Someday My Prince Will Come
I’m a big Miles Davis fan, and this is one of my favorites. I listen to both the mono original and the Analogue Productions 45-RPM version. With the Athenaeums, Miles’ trumpet is beautifully portrayed with nice and realistic bite, but never with a trace of edginess. Jimmy Cobb’s cymbals sounds absolutely beautiful with nice attack, but with incredible tone. The scale of the instruments and the power of the performance was simply life size.
Joni Mitchell Blue
In 1971, I was a freshman at Baylor and discovered Joni Mitchell, and the album Blue was my first exposure to her beautiful music. Now it’s 42 years later and I’m 59, and I love this album just as much as I did at 17 and any year in between. I listened to this album on KLH 17s, on Double Advents, and then on Quad 57s for years. The last few years it has been on my Teresonic Ingenium XR Silvers. I want you to know that I know this LP inside and out and I’ve not been as emotionally moved by it in years as I was listening to it over the Athenaeums.
Her voice was right there in the room, and still warm and full of different tonal colors. The piano sounded good and I’ve never heard the guitar of dulcimer sound any better. I really liked how these speakers let all the magic of the WE300Bs in my Wavac bring this LP to life in my room, and do so in such a rich and beautiful way.
The Weavers Reunion At Carnegie Hall, 1963 and Belafonte Live at Carnegie Hall
Speaking of LPs that I have listened to for many years, these are two recordings that, thanks to Harry Pearson, almost every audiophile from the early time of “The Absolute Sound” knows how they sound. The Weaver’s recording was done very simply. It was recorded on 3 tracks with an Ampex 300 at 15 1/2 IPS. All three mics were Schoeps M-221B/26 condensers.
It is a recording that can show the best and the worst of what have come to be known as the audiophile sound. On the cut “Ramblin’ Boy,” I’ve always been amazed at how you could hear the Weavers, the audience, and the reflections of the hall, but I never heard them with such realistic scale, and the air with so much weight.
Saint-Saens Symphony No. 3
The Mercury Living Presence Paray/Dupre version of the often-called “Organ” Symphony is such an emotionally involving piece, and sounded powerful and full with the Linns.
Nothing is Perfect or a Short Comparison
At the price they ask for these speakers, I feel it would be wrong to not point out the areas where these speakers do not match my Teresonic Ingeniums that cost 1/4th as much.
First, they just don’t come to life at low volumes. Not that they don’t sound nice at low volumes, but they do not come to life until you play them fairly loud. At low volumes, they are simply warmer than real life.
Second, they simply do not have the kind of micro-dynamics and drive that the Teresonic or the Audio Note Speakers have.
Third, they struggle with male voices other than tenor or falsetto voices. Sinatra, Cat Stevens, Willie Nelson, and others just sound a little off tonally. This is a problem that might be easily fixed by bi-amping and using an active crossover so that you could dial in the crossover, but I feel the speaker should stand alone at its price.
These are my only complaints, other than the price. They cost four times more than my Teresonics, three times more than a pair of Tannoy Canterbury SEs, and $500 more than Tannoy’s new Kingdom Royal. This puts them in the very, very top of high-end speakers.
Conclusion
Even with these complaints I just mentioned, these are still incredible speakers; speakers that easily draw you into the emotions of music, speakers that you will never forget.
Addendum
Well into the review I received some NOS Western Electric 435As (mine had several years of use on them) and a pair of NOS Sylvania 6L6GC from the 60‘s, as well as a pair of the RCA Black Plates 6L6GCs. I want to tell you in my Wavac EC-300B, the Sylvanias were a revelation and most of the review was written from the prospective of how my system sounded with them in the amp. My point in telling you this is to remind you that everything makes a difference, so when you find a speaker you like, you have to work on getting everything right, or you will probably not get anywhere near 100% of what they are capable of.
- ← Previous page
- (Page 5 of 5)
