Dear Friend
I have auditoned the XLs to two friends in two different auditions so far with the following system settings: The Room Size is 13X15X9.
IRD MB 100 Monoblocks Pair
IRD Purist Preamp
Modwright Denon 3910 Universal Truth Mod DVD/CD Player
I played their Favorite CDs and both of them asked me where is the Sub-Woofer? The Cabinet Design is amazing and when Mr. Dzurko says its the culmination of the design efforts for Sapphire, I take that to be literally true.
When I removed the grill and showed them the 5.25" driver, I pointed at it and said here is the Sub-Woofer that you are looking for.
The next question they asked me was about the Talismans, which are in the Home Theater Demo Room. The question was about the Price. When I told them Tals cost around $4K and Sapphires around $1.7K, they asked me why are these speakers and some others in the Audiophile Market so expensive.
My response was:
My Friends, The Material in these speakers might not be very expensive(which is not true in the case of XLs), but its the Cabinet Design and the Cross-over Design that the designer has researched for over 20 years and perfected it, so that People can listen to Pure Music and Home Theater sounds. But Tals and XLs can easily qualify for at least twice their current price(I hope Mike doesn't take this opinion as an advice
)
Another Experiment:
Before I got into this business, I had 27" CRT TV. My wife and I watched a lot of movies together with 5.1 Surround Sound(with Sapphires 1995 version as Front L/R and Denon 3802 receiver), and the impact the movies left upon both of us was so deep that the huge surround sound completely overshadowed the fact that we were watching a 27" screen.
Then there were times when I was setting up my Home Theater Room with a 50" Philips Plasma, when I replaced eveything with New Demo Stuff for Showroom and hadn't connected the AV-Receiver yet, We watched some movies without the 5.1 Sound but on a big screen, Now, here the Big Screen couldn't overshadow the absence of Dolby Digital Sound. The movies seemed boring.
So the Moral of the Story is Big Sound does wonders even with small Screens but the Vice-Versa is not true.
There is definitely a huge benefit in owning Sapphire XLs which is the WAF.
The Wife Acceptancy Factor. For XLs this factor is off the charts for me whereas for the old Sapphires it never touched the 100% line, no disrespect for Mike here, the Old Sapphire Designs are part of good ACI History now.
I think the review is getting too long here. I will add more some other time if there are more questions.
