I have been waiting on crossover parts for these and finally received them. The crossovers are built and installed now and I have started breaking them in. I think they have the potential to sound better, and perhaps more accurate than my reference modded KEF 104/2's.
After 2 days of break-in, they are sounding much more dynamic than stock versions and still a bit bright, but the imaging is fabulous. I was afraid that the long BG German ribbons (4 foot plus) would not extend as far as my KEF silk-dome tweeters, but they are doing great. Cymbols and bells sound more live than the KEF's, particularly bells. Since it is one driver, there is more coherence to bells. The acoustic mating between the ribbon and Vifa woofer seems to be pretty seamless, although the bass imaging is not quite a crisp as my KEF's, yet. It is really nice to be able to stand up and walk around and get the full audio treat. This is why I bought these, and to have a really good neutral, time-coherent reference. At this point, they are sounding like $7K speakers or better.
The nice thing about these speakers is that the crossover is located in the bass box and this is all that is required to mod them. The ribbon unit just removes easily. I am considering the possibilities of either modding them for customers or offering my own version of the speaker and OEM purchasing a half-built version from Soundline. The mod will not be cheap. The parts alone are over $700, but they are the very best: Jensen inductors, Caddock resistors with heatsinks and Multicap caps and lots of Empirical wire harnesses.
