The bass was what was wrong with the demo. I know that Bob's speakers measure flat, it's a big priority for them, and the bass was pretty much the only flaw there was that you would really pick at, and it wasn't even the speakers' fault. The speakers sounded really nice, large banks or swathes of sound when called for, like with xylophones, which sounded similar to how they ought, hearing the diffuse ringing of the bells, and not just the striking of the mallets on the wood blocks, and pinpoint when called for, such as with cymbals and brighter instruments. I'm a complainer, privately and in the safe anonymity of online forums, and in this case, there was just nothing much to complain about except for the room's bass. They were very detailed, and in the words of someone else, holographic. Again, to me, my mind couldn't associate the sound with the speakers because the projection of the sound was so large, that it couldn't have been coming from the speakers. With some light jazz trio work playing, listening from outside the auditorium, I could easily imagine a real trio playing inside.
Actually, one of the things that pleased me was how close the SP Tech AV-2 speaker kit I bought and assembled got me to the sound of the S-9. The S-9 did many things better. Despite the AV-2 kit's 8" driver MTM arrays, and a much much larger visual presence, the S-9 played (much much how many times can I say much?) louder effortlessly and presented things with much larger images (not lacking in specificity or precision, but with a larger presence, closer to real life.) Imaging was more detached from the speakers than the AV-2. It's hard to compare though because of the very different natures of the two listening environments and the fact that there was not one recording I was able to listen to on both systems. Nevertheless, the AV-2 kit got me very very close for a fraction of the cost. Bob, I just hope you're still in business by the time your finished products can fit in my budget. These speakers deserve a good listen with recordings you are very familiar with - hopefully the RMAF room will be treated for bass. It may be interesting to note that although my own system is reinforced with a subwoofer that roughly -3db@20hz, very little music actually reaches that range, probably nothing that we listened to came closer than 41hz or so for the low E on a 4 string electric bass. Nevertheless, what bass there was had a much stronger presence, force, and impact in the S-9 demo. Some of the weakness of the bass in my system I attribute to my own room, which is not great, either, but that doesn't detract from the very dynamic bass in the S-9 demo (despite the room induced bloat and ring.) I would be more than happy to own the S-9 and experiment with bass traps and/or EQ in the demo room, if the room were mine.
