Hello all,
I visited Danny Richie earlier this week and had the opportunity to listen to the A/V 0, the O3, and Gary Dodd's battery powered preamp. I thought that the A/V 0 was a really nice speaker for rear surrounds. The O3 was MUCH better as far as the style of the sound that the speaker reproduces. Both speakers' design leads one to believe that there is no way that the speakers would image or have a "soundstage" of any sort. Even with that initial bias, I was really bowled over by the O3. The speaker had a nice deep soundstage with rather good imaging. I wish that all of you readers could have the opportunity to listen to these speakers. I originally thought that the O3s would only be good for home theater use, but they really do justice to the stereo cause.
The speakers are driven by Gary Dodd's 50 Watt tube (valve) monoblock amplifiers and the preamp is the beautiful battery powered preamplifier. When listening to what I believe was the soundtrack from "Brother, Where Art Thou," I was astonished to hear in the very back of the soundstage the sound of a rather quiet chiming clock. Needless to say, I had never heard the chime in all of my auditioning. It is difficult to believe that the kit is only $415 sans the cabinet. I would love to get a pair, but I am standing strong in waiting for LS-6 to come to fruition.
The Dodd equipment was excellent as always. The battery powered preamp is rather unusual due to absent sound floor. I own the very first Entry-Level Tube (Valve) Preamp that Gary ever made and it is a very good sounding pre. Whenever you stand somewhat close to the A/V 3 speakers (my personal pair) you can hear the tube hiss projected by the tweeter. The battery powered preamp has no hiss or 60Hz drone, it reproduces sound significantly better than my Plinius CD Lad. And like the Plinius, the Dodd has a REMOTE CONTROL!!! I can't tell you how many times that I listen to compilation compact discs and each song has a totally different median sound level. With a remote, you can fix the problem on the fly. Without a remote you have to raise or lower the gain, return to your seat, get out of the chair and repeat until the level matches the last song. Then, when the sound is correct, then you have to repeat the track from the beginning. It's a lot of work that sometimes has to be repeated every 5 minutes at the beginning of every song. Anyway, I hope that I helped those interested, by giving my opinion of the A/V 0, the O3, and the Dodd preamplifier.
Regards and my thanks to Gary and Danny,
Chris
