[nickd]

The following review will contain my opinion on a pair of BG Radia FS 420's I just purchased.

The room:
14' 6"w x 21' deep x 9' high. Drywall walls and ceiling, slab floor, heavy curtains on front wall.

The system:
Mini mac computer, PS Audio perfect wave DAC, PBN Audio Olympia L solid state (all FET) preamp and PBN Audio EB1 "Super Amp" (all FET) 140 WPC at 8 ohm 280 WPC at 4 ohm. Sub woofer. Built in 18" MC Cauley 18" woofer in a 16' transmission line. 400 watt class AB FET sub amp. Crossover set to 70 HZ.

The Speaker: Retail $6500.00 US per pair.
Floor standing 50" high 9" wide in high gloss black. 2 ea NEO 10's and 1 ea Neo 3 in open baffle MTM configuration. 2 ea 6" woofers in a sealed alignment built in to the small base. Frequency response 70HZ to 22 KHZ with a 91 DB efficiency at 4 ohm load. 5 way binding posts (4 ea) are gold plated but cheap and in a plastic mount. Crossovers are at 250 Hz & 1500 Hz at 12 db per octive. (The crossover points are seemless, very good driver blend)

The Sound:
On first listen, Open and VERY transparent. Compareable with the best in that area. Very neutral upper bass and mids. The Neo 3 tweeter is one of my favorites so I must admit my bias here. I have yet to own a speaker with a Neo 3 running Open baffle. WOW it really makes a difference. The highs are quite amazing. Cymbals have a sheen and "real" sound that takes a special loudspeaker to get just right. The 420's get it right.

The 420's excel at Brass and Strings. I have not heard the latest offerings from Raidho but I imagine these two would compete at the same level. Although I would expect the more expensive Raidho models to have better crossover parts. Brass on the 420's has the requisite "bite" that you expect from the brass section. If your system does not have it you are missing out. On a side note I played trumpet, baratone and tuba in a large band in my younger years.

Vocals are quite excellent on this speaker. The speed of the Neo 10's brings out the best in both male and female vocalists. Stand out performance must be noted in groups like The fairfield 4" and "Ladysmith" It is fun to hear the delineation of individual voices in the soundstage. It put a big smile on my face.

There are some weaknesses. More in omission really. You need a good fast sub with the 420's they don't really have anything below 70Hz to offer. It is part of the design and a good idea in my opinion. The speakers take up very little floorspace and you need them out in the room about 3 feet to sound there best. My only critique would be that I have heard stronger upper bass although from much bigger designs. Most of those designs however sacrifice some speed and my room can overload at those frequency's anyway. I guess I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of upper bass loudness for speed and clairty.

The FS 420's hit well above their price range. I don't know of a better value out there. The soundstage is huge and 3 dimensional, the overall balance is very neutral and the transparency is State Of The Art. I'm a bit smitten right now if you can't tell. it has been quite some time since I have had this much fun for the money. Highly recommended!

Speakers I have owned for compareson:
Audio Artistry CBT36, GR Research Super V, GR Research LS-9, Totem manitou and The One's (both signature), Montana KAS, Montana WAS, Montana EPS, Carver Amazings, Jamo R 909, Thiel CS 2, And way too many more to name. 

Pics to follow, questions and comments (friendly ones) welcome.
 

[Ric Schultz]

Wow, what a list of speakers you have owned!  So, how do these new guys compare to all the others?......yes, you must write paragraphs detailing the difference between these and each of the others....he he.  "For the money, you are smitten".......Where do they fall short? (besides the obvious bass and dynamics)

Now if you re-wired them, re-capped them, re-coiled them, re-resistored them and removed the binding posts.....just think how much better they would be (Neotech Litz cotton wire, Clarity MR caps or Dueland caps, Dueland resistors and Jensen Copper foil coils)!!!!!!! 

[Danny Richie]

Yeah, I bet those are really impressive. Those drivers really are special in an open baffle. And yes the Neo 3 is completely different in an open baffle. Wow pretty much nails it.

Funny thing is those two Neo 10's in parallel hit 96 to 97db. So they are padding them down quite a bit to bring them down to the level of the woofers. And I have a hard time believing they really are running the tweeters down to 1.5kHz, but it is possible. They are a seamless match with the Neo 10's for sure.

Nice review.

Ric, There is a reason that the Jansen foil inductors are so much cheaper than the rest. They are made from recycled Copper. They are 94 to 95% Copper. The rest is just trash metal. That is whey they do not sound so good. The inductors that are already in there might be better.

But yes, I am sure there is room for upgrades and improvements.

Built in 18" MC Cauley 18" woofer in a 16' transmission line.

I don't know how good it sounds or how low it goes, but I bet that thing will bring the house down.

[Ric Schultz]

Danny,
Jensen copper foil in wax inductors.....not Jantzen......same country but the Jensens are suppose to kill the Alpha cores.  This is according to Steve Nugent who A/Bed with the Alphas years ago and then told Ryan at Cirrus Audio about them and now Ryan is using them.  I will be trying them as well.

[Danny Richie]

Danny,
Jensen copper foil in wax inductors.....not Jantzen......same country but the Jensens are suppose to kill the Alpha cores.  This is according to Steve Nugent who A/Bed with the Alphas years ago and then told Ryan at Cirrus Audio about them and now Ryan is using them.  I will be trying them as well.

Oh yeah. I got the two mixed up. Sorry...

[nickd]

I don't know how good it sounds or how low it goes, but I bet that thing will bring the house down.

 
That one got me laughing Danny, a quick story to explain why. On a summer eve a few years back, we were standing outside on the front porch one nite saying good by to friends that were visiting. Monsters Inc was playing in the media room the (kids had been watching). the scene with the big monster walking by and you only see his feet on screen was playing. The entire house shook like there was an earthquake! I burst out laughing when my wife turned gave me "the look".

I built that sub about 10 years ago. It is the only component in that room that has constantly held my admiration. It plays deep (18 Hz) and will hit so hard at 25Hz you don't want to be sitting by a window.

As for the crossovers, the thought had occurred to me to take them to the next level already. It is not an easy speaker to take apart. But I intend to have a look inside.

I had even considered sending them to Danny  at GR Research to rework the crossovers for use with servo subs. We could just abandon the 6" woofers and low pass to the servos at 250Hz? I already have the sub boxes cut out. Just gathering funds for amps and drivers.

I will write quite a bit on comparesons later. Don't expect the 420's to "blow away" The GR Research LS-9's or the Montana KAS. Those big reference platforms are hard to beat in the right room and system.The BG's are just different. But in my room size is important. The BG's really kick butt for their small footprint. They are slim, modern looking and have a very high "WAF". 

[Danny Richie]

I have heard some of those Mc Cauley 18" drivers in some of these Bassmaxx speakers: http://www.bassmaxx.com/products/subs/motiv-horns/b-zerod/  They didn't play much below 30Hz and there had a fairly resonant sound, but they hit like you would not believe.

The servo subs will play up to them just fine, but you'll need to get them fairly close to cross them over at 250Hz.

You might could put a pair of the 8" servo subs in an open baffle right under them, but that will take some changes to the box.

One of the designs in the works for Serenity Acoustics uses a New 3 and Neo 10 in an open baffle and three of the 8" servo subs below it. Sensitivity is 93db. You get that out of the Neo 3 and Neo 10 real easy. The only reason that speaker from BG is less is that they are adding some resistors in line with those drivers to bring them down to the level of the small woofers.
 

[nickd]

I can place the servo subs right next to the 420's, running below 70 Hz until I can re-work the crossover. Eventually I would like to ditch the resistors in line with the neo 10's and Neo 3 and run them full out if posible. That might kick up the dynamics a notch. Better for tubes Too!

I am blessed with lots of Amplifier power so playing LOUD is not an issue. The 420's will play LOUD. listening through a resistor is not optimum in my opinion though. A necessary compromise with the small woofers in the base of the 420's. I will just have to engineer around that.