[jlupine]

I heard the Gallo Reference III speakers at a local dealer for about 1.5 hours.  The system included a Metronome CD player, McCormack amplifier, and a VTL preamp. With a low-pass filter, one can connect a another amplifier to the woofer’s second voice coil to extend the bass;  in this installation, only the McCormack was used.  The room was about 4000 cu. ft. with some acoustic treatment, a bit of a flutter echo, and no windows.  The design of the speakers reminded me of the taillights of some of those extravagant cars from the early 1960’s;  my wife thought more of stainless steel pots and pans.

 The Gallos are tiny, weighing only about 47 lbs. each.  The most remarkable design feature is the CDT tweeter:  it’s detailed and extended without glare or brightness, with a horizontal dispersion of  about 300 degrees.  With smaller scale music, the extremely spacious soundstage achieves precise imaging with an almost unlimited sweet spot;  the image was still extraordinarily spacious, just not as precise, with larger scale selections.    Sitting on the floor or standing had little effect on the the image in either case.

The Gallo’s dynamics were excellent, and fidelity at low levels—say about 70 dB—was very good.  For the size of the speakers, the bass had a surprising amount of impact.    

The midrange drivers were not quite up to the tweeter’s level, but were well integrated with the tweeter, perhaps in part because of the absence of any electrical crossover above 150 Hz.  However, I didn’t always hear details that I knew were on my CDs, and there was a slight hollowness or muffling that I detected a few times.  The woofers were the weak link;  for their size and the limited volume of the enclosure, they did a good job, but they frequently sounded mushy and couldn’t reproduce deep bass at all.  On smaller scale music, the Gallos are more comfortable and consistently do an admirable job; there was a tendencey for them to get confused and sound a bit muddled on some large-scale orchestral and choral works.   My wife felt—because of this confusion--that the midrange was the weak link;  but she was also very impressed and stated that overall she’d prefer them to the Revel Performa M-20s that we used to have.

In summary, the Gallos are an amazing product with a few shortcomings, modestly priced at $2599/pair, offering good dynamics and imaging at loud or soft levels and incredible dispersion.
They were capable of playing without strain at higher SPLs than I ever listen to.  The speakers performed well in a large room, and would probably be good in a small room as long as they could be positioned some distance from the corners.  I think that they do their best with solo, chamber, or pop music, and not quite as well with larger scale works.            

Jan

[DARTH AUDIO]

Jan,  Nice Review.. Which dealer did you do your listening at? I heard them at Little Guys Audio south of the city. Not the greatest set-up

[javry]

I'm glad someone finally posted something about these speakers.  All the rags are saying great things about them.  Can you give me some idea of how they compare in the war of planar vs box speakers?
Javry

[Ric Schultz]

I am very intrigued by these speakers.  I heard them a year ago when they were first introduced in S.F. and was amazed at what they could do.  In fact, in that room with Spectron amp people were looking in the corners for subwoofers and were blown away by the bass and clarity.  So, my question is, how much of the "deficiencies" that you noted were the player/preamp/cabling/resonance control/amps/line filtering, etc. and how much was the speaker.   Anotherwords, did you A/B the Gallos with some other speaker in the same room, set up in the same spot with the same electronics on the same day?  If not, how can you tell what is doing what?  This is always my concern when I read a review of equipment and especially, is seems, speaker reviews done at a store or at a show.  I have heard over and over again how a certain speaker sounded like dodo in the store and when taken home sounds compeletely different and WAY better.....so please tell us that you heard another speaker before of after it so we can determine if the "deficiencies" you heard were the speaker or otherwise.  Thank You in advance.  

By the way, I have a friend who replaced his Martin Login Prodigies with these speakers and is very happy with them....he does feel that the side firing woofers don't give quite the impact that the two front mounted woofers did in the Prodigy but otherwise the Gallos are much better.  He has yet to biamp them but is going to do so soon so this will certainly affect the bass depth and possibly its speed.....we shall see...er hear.

[lonewolfny42]

They had a five channel home theater set up at the HE 2004 show in NYC.Hard to tell overall quality, ...they had them really pump'in with some drum demo DVD movie.

[Val]

While I haven't listened to them, I guess the "muddling" you heard is the result of the first-order woofer low pass. Srajan Ebaen:

That very appealing but minor degree of warmth is a function of the shallow woofer slope. It subtly augments the 4" mids well above 500Hz.

Intuitively I would say the surprisingly efficient woofer that is so good down low isn't that good higher up, so there should be a higher-order low pass, but maybe the tradeoff would then be a thin midrange from those tiny cones. Anyway, I look forward to what Marty has to say about it. I understand Stereophile also has a review upcoming.

I loved the CDT tweeter in the Nucleus Solo and Reference, but a speaker should live and die by its midrange.

[jlupine]

I don't have anything useful to say about the Gallo with respect to planar v. box designs.  To me, bi- or dipolar radiation is very different in effect from what the Gallo's CDT does.  It's more reminiscent of the way that mbl designs load the room.  The room is filled with sound, and the speakers tend to disappear.

I heard the Gallos at Van L. Speakerworks in Chicago as sort of a cooperative effort with Kay's Interiors.

I didn't listen to other speakers with all other variables controlled.  I have heard other speakers (two different Whatmoughs, Van L's Quartets, and one more brand) in the same room twice with the same electronics and once with a Plinius amp;  I don't know if the cables or line conditioning were the same, but I felt that the bass was better during the other auditions.  I believe that much of Srajen's low-frequency enthusiasm was based (sorry) on a biamped setup.

I hope that my review didn't sound negative:  these are remarkable speakers that do many things very well.  They're tiny, the sweetspot is huge, the dynamics are very impressive, they sound good at low or very high SPLs, and the price is quite modest.

Jan

[Jon L]

I'm glad someone finally posted something about these speakers.  All the rags are saying great things about them.  Can you give me some idea of how they compare in the war of planar vs box speakers?
Javry

Which "rags"?  I am aware of only one review (Sixmoons) so far, which was a rave.  To be honest, that rag is teaching me more and more to take it with a large grain of salt.

I'd love to listen to the new Gallo, but I suspect the problem will be the age-old one of having drivers of different resolutions.  I remember what Dr. Edgar keeps saying.  The trick to designing a great sounding speaker is to use drivers of similar resolution.  I suspect the CDT tweeter is on a level of resolution different from the rest of the drivers, which Could be bothersome in the long run.  Or maybe not.  Wish there were dealers around close.

[asull2k]

I remember what Dr. Edgar keeps saying.  The trick to designing a great sounding speaker is to use drivers of similar resolution.  I suspect the CDT tweeter is on a level of resolution different from the ...

No.  It is a dispersion issue.

[Jon L]

I remember what Dr. Edgar keeps saying.  The trick to designing a great sounding speaker is to use drivers of similar resolution.  I suspect the CDT tweeter is on a level of resolution different from the ...

No.  It is a dispersion issue.

Are you saying the biggest trick to making a great speaker is matching dispersions, or that Gallo's (suspected) problem is different dispersions?  

Obviously, dispersion is very important in speaker design, so is cabinet rigidity, crossover design, down to the choice of internal wires used.  Any failure in one of these, including using drivers of dissimilar resolution, would result in a disappointing loudspeaker; and it would be pointless to discuss which factor the THE most important since all are important Enough.

[zybar]

This was one of the big problems with the previous Ref's - the tweeter was so much better than the other drivers that I could always hear them separately.

Anthony Gallo says this is no longer the case with the new model.

IS he right?  I hope to listen to the speakers in a 2 channel system and find out for myself.

George

[asull2k]

While I understand what Jon L is saying, having heard the exact same setup myself, I am saying that dispersion (more specifically, coherent power response) is the issue with these speakers.  

Sitting back far (8+ feet) this is not a problem, but when you move around a bit as I typically do in auditions, I think the "problem" becomes fairly evident.  And although it is a tilted-up design, the D'Appolito arrangement and nature of the tweeter makes vertical dispersion extremely limited if you listen slightly above the tweeter plane.  The tweeter itself subjectively sounds like a fairly decent ribbon.

To those who don't care about off-axis sound, not an issue.  A lot of people like having good sound only in the sweet spot these days, and I am sure they would find the sound quite good.  Non-biamped, however, the lower extension was very limited.

[Enrico]

While I understand what Jon L is saying, having heard the exact same setup myself, I am saying that dispersion (more specifically, coherent power response) is the issue with these speakers.  

Sitting back far (8+ feet) this is not a problem, but when you move around a bit as I typically do in auditions, I think the "problem" becomes fairly evident.  And although it is a tilted-up design, the D'Appolito arrangement and nature of the tweeter makes vertical dispersion extremely limited if you listen slightl ...

asull2k, I'm interested by what you say; what speakers would you say have good dispersion and good off-axis sound? I am a person who cares about this; good sound in sweet spot with lousy sound off-axis is not enough for me.

[Audio Architect]

I have been interested in Gallo speakers since auditioning the Nucleus Minor almost ten years ago.  I presently own 2 pairs of Nucleus Micros, which I use as surrounded speakers.  For some time I have been hoping that Gallo would introduce a new speaker comparable to the discontinued Nucleus Solo or Reference II (which received virtually unanimous extremely positive reviews from both professional reviewers and owners).

I auditioned the Reference 3's on two different occasions at the same store (The Little Guy’s in Homewood, Illinois). I heard them in 2 different rooms and was amazed at how different the bass was from one room to the other. In both case they were demonstrated without augmentation (bi-amping of the woofers second voice coil). In the first room they almost did not require a sub-woofer and in the second room they definitely did. In as much as I am completely aware of the affects a room can have on the lower frequencies I was still surprised at the huge difference. The approximate size and layout of the rooms were as follows:

Room With Full Range Response
About 16' wide by 18' long by 9' high with speakers on the long wall about 30" out with a 65" plasma TV between them. The listening position was up against the opposite wall. (I realize that this was not an optimum set up and that is why I auditioned the speakers again in the room below.) The amplifiers used in this room were discontinued Musical Fidelity mono-blocks (250 Watts per channel into 8 Ohms).

Room With Rolled Off Response
About 18' wide by 20' deep by 10' high, with speakers on 18' wall with the speakers about 42" out and the listening position about 8' out from the opposite wall. (walking around the room made only subtle differences in bass response).This room probably makes the speakers sound more like the designer intended but definitely requires augmentation. The amplifier used in this room was a Musical Fidelity A308 Integrated Amplifier (150 Watts per channel into 8 Ohms)

I noticed that on some male vocals the image seemed rather low. I thought this might me due to the low placement of the woofer. I e-mailed Srajan Ebaen of sixmoons.com, who reviewed the Gallo’s; with this observation and he wrote that he consistently achieved an image that was about 5.5’ to 6’ high (he had them fully tilted back which I did not).  I also felt the image was not well focused in the “full range room” (I assumed due to the large plasma TV between the speakers). Image quality in the rolled off room was slightly better but not as good as my home system or the SP Technology Continuums that I auditioned previously.  The Continuums are great speakers but after the recent price increase, they are beyond my budget and SP does not currently offer a surround speaker that can be wall mounted.

After my first audition of the Reference III, I was extremely enthusiastic about the speaker. I felt that it had and an extended open response, reasonably good dynamics and good bass extension.  The few negative things, such as the diffuse imaging and low image height were in my opinion attributable to the room and set up in the room described above as “room with full range response”.  Upon auditioning the speakers again I was so preoccupied with the drastic change in bass response that I did not pay enough attention to the remainder of the frequency range.  I did however notice that the imaging was still not as focused as I am accustomed to.  Although the second room did have acoustical absorbing material on the walls it may not have been located properly for the current speaker and listener positions.  It is my guess that since the Reference III uses an omni directional tweeter, positioning of acoustical absorbing materials is very important.

There is however one other issue that is troubling me.  Like many people today I am interested in surround sound for both music and home theater (with emphasis in my case on music).  This requires the use of three front speakers preferably identical or at least as close to being identical as possible.  The reference III could have fulfilled that requirement if they could be purchased separately but unfortunately Gallo only sells them in pairs in pairs.  I understand they will be introducing a new center speaker to match the reference III, and that this new product may be configured for both horizontal and vertical applications.  Personally I think horizontally oriented center speakers are a compromise necessitated by CRT type rear projection TVs.  For an ideal music surround systemit is my opinion that three identical front speakers, with identical radiation patterns is the ideal. I find it difficult to understand why Gallo has chosen to only sell their new product in pairs.  The current trend in video is away from CRT rear projection televisions to more compact formats such as plasma LCD and DLP, many of which can be wall or shelf mounted.  The three foot high Reference III could easily be accommodated below these televisions.  I understand that many people still own CRT type rear projection TVs and for that reason would prefer a horizontally oriented center speaker. However it is my opinion that in the future horizontal center channel speakers will not be as popular as they are now, especially for music surround applications.  For this reason I think it would be wise if Gallo sold the Reference III separately as well as in pairs.  I'm sure that their new center channel speaker will be a good product but like all products it may not suit everyone's needs, but it would not cost Gallo anything to also sell the reference III separately for use as a matching center channel speaker.

Despite the above criticisms, I am still very interested in the Gallo’s and I will definitely audition them again. One of the reasons that I have posted this mini review is to illustrate how different these and most other speakers can sound under different conditions. When someone dislikes a speaker based on one audition, they may not have heard what the product is capable of. I am hoping I have not yet heard what the Reference 3 is capable of.