Hi James,
It's being a while, about 5 months (close to 2000 hours) now since getting my model T Signatures. I would like to share my thoughts on how they sound against my (EDIT) on 2 channel music.
I have a very difficult room, in a basement. It's 16x16 foot with, a 7 foot 2" suspended ceiling. I have done major work on the room trying to make it more speaker friendly. It has major sound proofing, double dry wall with green glue in between, acoustic paneling, and bass traps in the corners. For my front end, I am using a high end Esoteric CD player, Esoteric preamp and Esoteric 2 channel amp. Over the past 6 years i have been lucky enough to own/test a variety of (edit) speakers. Certain (edit) speakers like the (edit) sounded great in my friends houses, but not so good in mine.
In My room, the (edit) are very detailed/transparent, providing a 3D soundstage on good recordings. They reveal all the good and bad in recordings. Unfortunately much of the not so good recordings become irritating on the (edit). Even average recordings would be ok for a limited listening time. But, good recordings were just outstanding. In my room the (edit) always sounded a bit too lean with not enough bass. The only way to get enough bass was to run a 10" sub with them. But I did not like how the sub sounded with the (eit). I have had a number of people over to try and figure out how to fix my bass problem. Everyone was at a loss. Even my dealer came over and could not believe what he was hearing. We finally narrowed it down to a a major floor bounce suck out in the 60-80 Hz range. James you had explained this phenomenon in the Bryston loudspeaker thread on speakers with a single bass driver. I had also tried a number of high end cables/and mid range cables, to aid in taming them. My best taming the top end, came with using a pair of Manley Snapper tube amps. But, the Bass was still lacking.
I had heard the Model T Passive version when they first came out. I did like the bass/midrange, but thought the top end was lacking the detail I wanted. So I continued to look. A few years later and a few more (edit) models, I decided they weren't the speaker for my room. Knowing that Bryston had changed the tweeters, I decided to give the Model T Signatures a go this time. The outboard crossover would provide me with numerous cable tweaking opportunities, to each individual driver, plus the option to go fully active in the future.
I ran the speakers for up to 10-15 hours a day at different volume levels. I took about 120 hours before the bass started to loosen up. The high end seemed a bit congested up to about the 175 hour mark, and then slowly more detail began to emerge. The speakers started to sound good around the 250 hour mark. The first thing I noticed was how much fuller (a bit too much) and warmer the model T sounded in my room. They seemed to fill the room completely. I finally had the bass I was lacking, but it was a bit loose. They still were not as detailed and transparent as my (edit). I invited over a friend who can hear grass grow, to get his opinion We found the cables that worked the best on the (edit) did not sound as good on the Model T's. To bring out more detail and transparency we turned off the up sampling on my esoteric CD player and changed the digital filter option. That made a big difference in the top end detail and openness, but the bass was still a bit loose. So i decided to experiment with speaker cable options. I ended up with running DH labs Q10 silver Sonic bi-wired in to the crossovers (bass and mid) with a q10 jumper from the mid to high, and then Q10 out of the crossover in each binding post on the speakers. This cable opened up the top end more, and also provided a touch more detail, without sounding bright. The bass also tightened up nicely.
What is my Decision?
The (edit) speakers are no doubt very detailed and transparent, but will show all the warts in music. I have heard these in a friend’s house with tube amps and they sounded really great. But in my room they were too bright and fatiguing. Also they use a transmission line bass that some people may not like.
The Model T Signature's (after my adjustments) are still not as detailed and transparent, but now come much closer to the (edit). They have a huge soundstage. They are still fuller and warmer but less so, in a good way, now that I changed the cable to the Q10. There is also zero listening fatigue. I also find you can turn up the volume higher and they do not fall apart. The fullness seems to make average recordings sound better, and bad ones tolerant. I also found these speaker sound much better for surround sound duty (I also have the Model T Center) than my (edit) did. Oh, the bass, did I say I really like the bass on these I no longer even think of adding a sub.
As other people have said, these speakers provide very good bang for the buck. I am comparing them to speakers that cost almost 3 times as much. Are they as good – maybe no, but they sure get very close. In my case the room was the factor, and the Model T's just was a better fit for my listening ear. So, i ended up keeping the Model T's.
Adol290
