[Music Maven]

From what I hear, Focal drivers (division of JM Labs) will be reserved in the future only for their own JM Labs speakers. I guess in a way I can understand this, but certainly a number of fine brands have used Focal drivers, Vienna Acoustics being one...

Jerry

[doug s.]

...I think I need to stay away from very revealing speakers because she is only using a Panasonic XR45. That is one of the reasons I would check out Vandersteens. I know they are not bright and have good freq ext for their size and price....

don't sell that panny amp short - i am presently using the sharp ex-111 digital amp w/coincident victory's - these speakers are *wery* revealing, & this cheap digital amp sounds excellent driving them.

also, re: focal tweets vs vandersteens; i also like dynaudio tweets, thies, hi-vi research tweets, proacs, diapasons, etc, etc, etc.  vandies yust aren't my cuppa - wery veiled as i said before...

ymmv,

doug s.

[Carlman]

I wouldn't use revealing/non-revealing as a determining factor with the XR-45.  From what I've seen and heard, the XR-45 sounds good on some speakers and not so good on others...  but I haven't seen why this is.  The revealing nature of the speakers wasn't to blame.  It's more likely the type of load the speaker presents to the amp and whether they play well together.

I've noticed speaker-to-amp matching more important with digital amps much moreso than traditional amps.

-C