Hi All! It's been awhile since I posted here in pdvd since na lihis ang hobby ko but recent "accidental" developments, led me to be introduced to sir macdon and sir anthony. One thing led to another as they say and in short, last night, a dimunitive and unassuming little speaker is sitting in my now very quite and inactive lounge (it's been months since I listened seriously to music
).
Admittedly, I was reluctant at first to get this "clone" speakers since my mentality now is "been there than that" attitude and I was firm in just keeping a very low profile audio set up. But me being a " doubting Thomas" and wanting to disapprove such high acclaims of speakers costing so little and being a diy, at that, beating hi end speakers is to much to ignore.
We (sir Anthony by my side) first tried my Yamaha NS-555 floorstanding spakers ( I told you guys I'm low profiled nowadays
) as a reference. I know this is not a fair comparison since the yammies are 3 ways with dual 6" woofers each side but I don't have real worthy bookshelf available. We now have a little idea how a big speaker sounds.
We then fired this proac wannabe and played the same audiophile selection (a jazz in the pawnshop cut). At first, I was a bit disappointed since the soundstage and frequency bandwidth dropped considerably. Anthony, sat motionless for awhile.
He then requested me to increase the volume of my pre amp. I obliged. Then things started to get interesting.
As we progress, the sound slowly opened up and the frequency bandwidth increased to the point that it is now comparable to my yammies in soundstage and everything!
As it turned out, the speakers are not yet burned in and understandably is lower in efficiency than my yammies. My extended listening that night after Anthony went home already showed a lot ( I mean a LOT !!) of potentials for this wannabe.
I should note that after an hour of listening I already reduced my volume by 3 steps in the potentiometer with the sound output constant, meaning the efficiency of the speakers went up already.
Remind you guys, this is just an initial observation of this speakers and I'm trying to be very objective on this and don't want to be impartial or bias. I haven't really heard the proac response 1sc yet, but I've heard several hi end bookshelf speakers before, and I can only say that this "wannabe" has no right to imitate a proac
since it can hold up on its own, having a very smooth and articulate sound of its own. What I heard here is a speaker with a very surprisingly good performance for its value!! (I never thought I would say that cliche.
)
In it's price range, I would safely say, even with just a short time of audition, it is miles ahead of the competition. I had wharf 9.1, 9.2, aegis 1, evo 1, and others before and I know how they sound. The best part here is I auditioned this speakers with just a humble entry level set-up, thus, I'm sure things will get better given a better system.
In a short description of the character of the speaker, it is a neautral speaker with a refined and smooth frequency. The midrange and high notes are honest, no exaggeration, no midbass bloom (wharf, psb and entry level paradigm offenders here), the bass is excellent for it's size with bass notes you can clearly define. Oh, did I mention the lovely soundstage? The sound is really very open and quite big for it's size.
I'm again excited in audio thanks (or no thanks
) to sir macdon and sir anthony. This speaker should not be called a proac clone since it's such a good performer on it's own merits that it deserve a distinct name which we should be proud off to be pinoy made!
Kudos sir Anthony, job well done ....
