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OK. Here's my take on the Wavetouch Audio Grand Teton GT gen 2 speakers.Info here:http://www.wavetouchaudio.com/G2.htmlThis is a complicated speaker to cover simply. Just looking at these speakers gives you the idea that there are some very different elements at work here, but my first take on them suggested that these warranted a serious analysis.As context, in the past decade I've owned nearly 3 dozen "quality" (meaning- list price from $1500 to $5000) standmount speakers (of my 250+ total), and I've heard many more. I've owned many more cheaper models as well. Among this quality group are PSB Platinum M2, Volent paragon VL-2, VMPS 626R, Totem Model 1 signature, Thiel PCS, Talon Khite, Spendor LS3/5a, Silverline SR11, Sequerra met 7.7 mk V, Selah Tempesta, Selah SSR, Selah RAAL/revelator monitor, Revel M20, Paradigm Active 20, Paradigm ref 40, Onix Ref 1 MK 2 ninja, Nohr 9.0 Mini w/ dennis murphy xover, Morel Renaissance, Monitor audio GR10, merlin tsm-m and MME, Joseph audio RM7si mkii, GMA Rio, Event opal studio monitor, Escalante juniper, Buggtussel Cingulate, Aerial Acoustics 5, ACI sapphire III, AAD silver 1, and AAD 2001. FWIW, my fave 5 are, in order: Selah Tempesta (by a comfortable margin), Volent VL-2, Selah RAAL monitors, Event Opal, Merlin TSM-MME.I have 3 systems- office, bedroom, and living room, and I usually try all my speakers in all 3 systems with the "losers" in these comparisons going on to new homes.To begin with, the 13" tall cabinets of the GTs are very well constructed; stacked plywood makes for a very stiff structure; the resonance when struck is at quite a high frequency and obviously well damped. I think this contributes to the very open, clear lower mids and bass which they display. They remind me of the bamboo cabinets of the Ascend Sierra 1 (which I owned) in this respect.The 5.5" woofer is of high quality construction, and the "AMT" planar tweeter is very similar to those showing up lately in a lot of speakers such as Martin-Logan, Adam, Emotiva and Evolution Acoustics. So- there is no doubt there are quality elements in these speakers.To begin, I removed the "horns" from the woofer, to see what the basic speaker sounded like. It was very detailed in the highs, with decent midrange clarity, but a very thin and bright overall sound. An interesting sound, but not very listenable by my standards.Attaching the woofer horn and center "guide" really changed the sound. The region from the lower mids through the bass got much stronger, now with very nice body and punch. Dynamics and midrange focus improved greatly. In my 10x12' office they sounded very nice. In comparison with my Selah RAAL monitors, which are currently my all time favorite speaker for that room, the highs were as detailed and clear as the RAAL, but stronger and not quite as smooth. The mids and bass were also quite good, with great instrumental separation, dynamics, width, and depth. Once again, the Selah was a bit better balanced throughout.Next I moved them to my big system- the room is ~17x20, amp is a tweaked N-Core NC400, PRE/DAC is NAD M51. Everything in this system is carefully balanced around my Daedalus DA-RMA v2 speakers.In direct comparison to the 5x the size and price Daedalus, the bass and midbass is much reduced, so a lot of the warmth is lost. However, the detail presentation, imaging and soundstaging is reasonably close, not as natural and well integrated, but impressive nonetheless. The high end is still 1-2 db. too strong for my taste, and there is a trace of "cupped hands" coloration in the mids, but only a trace.So- sonically, we have a very fast, clean and open speaker, with good overall balance and great imaging, few annoying colorations, and good, solid bass in small to medium rooms. I do think the highs could be pulled back a bit more to improve the balance further, but the highs are detailed and clean otherwise.UPDATE: Alex has informed me that he will pad the tweeter down a bit. Alex supplies a variety of tweakes to adjust the sound of the speakers; I won't go into them but they can be good use to fit the sound to the needs of the user. So- sonically, I do think these are competitive with most of the best speakers in my above list, and pretty close to cracking my top 5. That's pretty good for a new effort at this price.Now- to the non-sonic aspects. I'm a bit troubled by the physical delicacy of the horns and guides assemblies that adds so much to the sound of this speaker. Paying $2k for a speaker is still a lot of $, and I like to think durability should be part of the package. I'd like to see Alex re-think the structural elements of the front assemblies with that in mind.Again, I'd like to applaud Alex's creative thinking on display here. These are very good speakers for the $, and well worth a listen. I've enjoyed my time with them.
