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Would be nice if one of you with the time on your hands to spreadsheet this information. Kind of a "scorecard", if you will. Bob
I have never listend to the statement e-two's but would pay good money to hear them.
There's no denying that this is an expensive system. We almost passed it by altogether. It was the last room we ventured into just a few minutes before the show officially closed.We had heard DarTzeel components before. We knew they were megabuck icons, not something we'd ever review. And we'd certainly never heard of Evolution Speakers. Probably just another overpriced speaker system. A couple of ceramic drivers and nice enough lacquered cabinets, but nothing special compared to all the monstrosities we'd seen that weekend and at countless shows before. Not surprisingly, this system was heard at The Home Entertainment Show, not CES. Things just seem to be better at THE Show. Only real hardcore music and audio loves venture there, not the teaming hoards the populate the massive Consumer show,The moment we entered the room though, we knew there was something special going on. The room was crowded with several people standing outside the door, peering in as if something cool was happening. When they saw our Stereomojo badges, they eventually ushered Darby to the center chair.Usually when you go into a megabuck room such as this ( Kondo in particular), you'd think you were at the last green at the Master's Tournament waiting for the final putt. There's a hushed reverence. Eerie. Not here. Everyone was so relaxed and jovial, like they had all just smoked some very happy weed. The room's hosts were playing a selection from Reference Recording's "Tutti" disk, one we know very well. Though we had heard that track thousands of times before, we had never heard it like THIS!We're not even going to try to describe the sound. All we can say is that this was not just the best sound at this show, it was the best sound at ANY show we've EVER heard. In fact, we can state that it's the best stereo reproduction we have ever heard...period. And that friends, is saying a lot.Yes, the DarTzeel amps ( NHB-458 monoblocks, whose 1000Wpc cost $135,000, but that's a pair - not each...ahem), and preamp (NHB-18 NS - $29,000 - but it includes a phono stage...gasp) together cost around $300,000. Cables by Evolution as well and all the other ancillary gear probably added quite a bit more. The Playback Systems MPS-5 Reference SACD/CD costs another $15,000.However, the Evolution Acoustics model MMtwo speakers were not anywhere close to those numbers, or close to any of the megalithic (we made that one up, too) speakers we saw. The Evolutions weigh 375 pounds (!) and sell for only $35,000 per pair. The "only" is in contrast to all the other six-figure speakers at the show.They are 53" tall, 18'" wide and 30" deep. The tweeter is a 5 inch aluminum ribbon between two 7" ceramic midranges and one 15" treated paper cone for the woofer. Frequency response, according to the literature, is 10Hz-40kHz and that's +/- 3 dB.At -6 dB. they go all the way down to an unheard of 7 Hz. They claim that impedance is 7 ohms and only deviates by +/- 2 ohms, so no wide swings. Sensitivity is a very high 93 dB. They are phase and time aligned. Woofers and tweeters are user adjustable. An internal amplifier for the low end is rated at 600 watts RMS. Max power handling is 400 watts. Minimum watts, they say, is 5 watts. Hard to believe. But if those watts are only driving the 93 dB sensitive mids and tweeters, maybe so.As big as those speakers were and crammed into a small room, when the music started they utterly disappeared. Linda said they sounded just as good to her and she was seated next to the left wall, way off axis. For the first and only time at this year's show, we listened to the entire Stereomojo Ultimate Evaluation Disk. As every track played, we were mesmerized. We have heard each of those tracks thousands of times, but in this room it was if we'd heard them for the first time. No, there wasn't any new sounds or noises we've never heard before, but what we did hear was simply....Wow! And it was not the amount of sound we heard, they weren't blaring, it was utter realism of the voices and music. Herve Delatraz of DarTzeel commented on what a great demo disk it was. The music wafting from that system was better than most live concerts. Publisher James Darby was heard to say to Evolution designer Jonathan Tinn, "This is the only system I would PAY to hear".
First, any decent speaker must produce a solid 3D image. So strike dipoles or arrays immediately. And you may want to strike "2.1" designs (that use two mid/woofers with one doing bass/mid-bass only).
The first set that comes to my mind is some Acoustat 1+1's driven by a Linn Sondek deck/arm/MC cartridge via a Spectral pre amp and amp listening to a very fine recording of some choral music. Spectral is something special if you don't know. There was stunning realism. Next best to my trials and trails would some Maggie 20.1's and some Vandy 5's. This from the earliest to the latest auditions, all quite awhile ago. This year I got to hear an AudioKinesis Planatarium Beta System with some sterling equipment in front and must include those bad boys.
The idea of paying money to listen to the best speakers you have heard reminded me of this report from StereoMojo's Best Sound at Show award at the recent CES and The Home Entertainment (THE) Show, found near the bottom of http://stereomojo.com/CES%202010%20Show%20Report/CES2010ShowReportPart7BestofShowAwards.htmMark