Yesterday, I received a pair of these speakers in lovely zebra wood finish and swapped them for my beloved Dali Zensor 3 speakers which are positioned on the bookcase the serves as the headstand on my bed... maybe 4"-5" from the wall. I initially drove them with my Tubes4Hifi SP 14 preamp and a DIY class D that was driving the Dali's very nicely. Well, I was underwhelmed to say the least with them out of the box. No dynamics nor volume to speak of. I swapped the class D amp for my Dennis Had EL84 SET tube amp, with maybe 16wpc, and it sounded somewhat better, but i initially longing for the the Dali's, no doubt.
I had the same experience with a new pair of KEF LS50 out of the box... they were unlistenable at first, honestly. But with a few days of run-in, they sounded very nice. Well, now with maybe 10 hours on the CAM's, the magic of Louis's creation is really coming to life. They aren't as punchy in the LF yet as were the Dali's, but the mid's are becoming rather sublime and inviting. So, with my impatience with new gear acknowledged, I am going to run these in as much as I can the next few days and I don't doubt they will soon sound far better. I have had some GR speakers and well as Blumenstein Orca's, both single-drive speakers and both had tepid LF response and crapped out with at moderately high SPL's. The both had a "small sound". It is already clear that these limitations will not be a problem with CAM's. Even now with a scant few hours on them, i think my SET amp is going to be very happy with it's new friends, the CAMs! The CAM's have a "big sound".
I think I am going to join the legions of devotees of Louis's speakers which I think are, even at this point, amazingly musical and life-like. I will chime in with other posters with my observation that he is among the nicer guys to deal with in this business. Finally, the beauty of these speakers is how damn good they sound nestled against the back wall. Louis assured me that they would function well in that location and frankly, hour by hour, they are sounding better and better. A big thanks to all the wise folks who have taken the time to inform me via this forum of the wisdom of purchasing Louis's speakers, which are probably the ~15th pair of monitors I have cycled through my system in the past several years. I will let the music play on and do expect to do a follow-up review in due time. Cheers, Whitestix
