Friends,
Were starting to get some new feedback regarding the Black Boxes. If you decide to post a review, please do so here in this thread from this point forward. Thanks!
In light of this we have a new and very happy customer that just installed 8 units. His system consisted of (yes
) Magico speakers being driven by an upstream Dolby digital crossover and (4) amplifiers per channel.
A friend (TeaJay) of this customer posted his review at Audiogon here:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/frr.pl?raccs&1258437649&read&3&4 The Magicos are the ones that use 4 dynamic drivers mounted in a monstrous enclosure machined from a solid billet of aircraft aluminum. Retail is something like $150K! The amps were some pretty pricy units from Europe (can't remember the name) and everything was pretty much "top shelf" gear.
It's OK if I say this now I suppose, but before the BBs were installed I have to say that I wasn't all that impressed with the sound. I know this sounds totally subjective and egotistic on my part, but the "God's-honest" truth is... I realy felt a pair of my Timepiece 3.0s would have sounded better being driven by a single amp. In fact, for all the money this gentleman had wrapped up in his system, I could hardly believe it didn't sound any better than it did. Part of the problem I figured was that seeing the room is rather small for a set of speakers that big, his system was suffering from early reflections coming from the side walls. There simply was no soundstage beyond the spacing width of the speakers.
The resolution and detail was... well... OK, I guess. Nothing to write home about though. Transparency was about the same and harmonic texture seemed relatively balanced, but... It's hard to put into words, but there just wasn't any "life" to the sound - sort of "flat" and just "there." I guess the response was flat because it was all tested by microphone and EQ'd by the Dolby unit to what I was told was a very flat response. I couldn't argue with that as everything sounded like it was "there" without any major bumps or dips.
Of course... I didn't say anything negative and tried to be as polite as possible. That was the first visit before I built the boxes. The customer changed a pre-amp prior my return to install the BBs, but nothing much really seemed to change sonically from what I could tell. At about that point I sure had my fingers crossed that the BBs would make some kind of improvement. After all... the customer dropped a good chunk of change on 8 units for Pete's sake. They had better do something or I'm gonna look like a snake-oil salesman!
OK, so I got them all hooked up and checked twice to make sure the phase was correct for all of those connections. Yep... good to go so we fired up all 8 amps and I held my breath.
I swear by the Good Lord above... you could hear the improvement from the very first note!
I was worried that the BBs would at least make some improvement... but I never expected what we heard coming from his system. It was like he just got a new pair of speakers or something - neither one of us could believe it! I'm telling you, the man was as giddy as a kid on Christmas morning that just got that new BB gun he had been wanting (reference "A Christmas Story" - the movie). He called TeaJay within 5 minutes and could barely contain himself. He shook my hand time and again and just went on and on saying that this was the best his system had ever sounded (and this coming from a guy that's had more gear pass through his system in a year than most of us ever will in a lifetime). I really didn't care so much about any of that, I was just releaved he was happy and didn't feel that he had wasted his money - or worse yet, want to return them (gulp).
I have to say though, I've never heard such a transformation and certainly didn't expect it. I had to admit that afterwards his system now sounded at least as good as a pair of my Timepieces... if not a little better. The bass was certainly deeper, but then the Magicos do use 15-inch woofers and are actively Eq'd on top of it. Whatever. All I know is that everything opened up and now the soundstage was well outside the speakers. Heck, there's no point in even trying to describe the difference. It was literally as though we were in a different room with different speakers and different equipment - and all much better at that.
Actually, I would suppose this was a fluke as I seriously doubt the BBs will make that much difference the majority of the time. If they did... the price sure would go up a notch or two - that's for sure! Nevertheless, it showed me their potential and it tells me their performance is intrinsically tied to the system's underlying potential. Had this customer's system not already possessed a very high level of "latent" potential... such results could have never been possible.
Anyway, that's the latest to my knowledge... and for once I was there to hear for myself. If anybody else would care to share their experiences, would you mind posting them here in this thread? Thanks again and...
Take care,
-Bob
