[trossen]

Hello,

I have taken my Ruby Heart Merlin VSM-Ms out of my room and replaced them with ACI Sapphire XLs in Rosewood.  Where the Velodyne HGS-10 had been sitting in the corner, I placed the Force XL. The Sapphires XLs have replaced those Very Scary Monitors with aplomb!

Everything is cabled with my DH Labs Revelations, Air Matrix and a pair of Q-10s up my new Sapphire XL speakers from the Paul McGowan tweaked HCA-2 amp.  The Force XL sub is sitting on top little silicone beads on my granite, neoprene, MDF amp stands I placed next to each other. Here is why I bought the Sapphire XLs and Force XL Sub.

I had heard Mike's Sapphires in my DH Labs room for the last two CES at the Alexis Park.  Mike Dzurko had loaned us his speakers and stands. Both times our DH Labs dealer and Prima Luna distributor Kevin Deal let me borrow the Prima Luna 3 KT88 integrated amp and a nice sounding Ahh! Tube CD player Kevin loaned us, and I keep the top off for folks to peek in. Tube CD player with a bunch of upgrades.  I wired the PL 3 to the CD player with DH Labs Revelations interconnects. We used a standard pair of Q-10 speaker cables.

After a few days of breaking in at fairly loud levels, sans any sub: the room was rocking and heads were banging!  Even the deepest bass lines from Groove Armada's LoveBox and Hooverphonic's Jackie Chan had folks coming in from outside and staying a very long time.  They were treated by my copy of Yello's Pocket Universe at thunderous levels. They wrote down the album info and we  shared great music and had a great time!

Yep, damn great little speakers!  We did not even need the sub in that room.

If any of you were fortunate to drop in and sit a spell, well you know what "good is". The richness, the bass, the 3D, the smoothness, the palpable soundstage deapth, the speed, the claririty...I could go on describing what most desire from each piece of their elctronics.  That includes tube selection.

Back here in the Socailist Republic of Maryland I have my Sapphire XLs up on my old Osiris 24" stands filled with Tidy Cat Clumping Litter.  These are fully adjustable stands of my own design, and a put a dab of Home Depot White Tack, BB size at each corner.  I put folded toilet paper in the center on top the stands and positioned the XLs so that their curved front edge was even with the matching curved edge on the stands. The tweeters were on the inside for the break in period, then I had just swtiched them so that they were on the outside edge...but I started feeling the need to start to shut down my 24/7 system! The terror!

I recently had to tear down everything and box it up so the painters could move about my home, home theater, and music room.  14 days without music except from my little 512 MB iRiver and Shure 3x ear buds each night.  Since I worked each day along side of the paint crew, I was freaking tired and listened 5 mins before I conked out.

Finally I have everything back in their place.  I used a small air compressor and blew the painter's dust, silica off everything piece of gear.  Then took my time sweeping it off, wiping it, blowing it off...

I had to take apart each piece of gear in the music room.  The silica dust got under the plastic trash bags I had taped around everything.  My Metronome Signature transport and DAC had to be disassembled and reassembled!  My Hovland Company HP100 preamp had dust in it too.
I put everything back and popped in Godsmack to help get those surrounds exercised, and the Force XL sub loosening up.

Even after all that time I had things a rocking and my head a-bangin!

It was very difficult to remove myself from my comfy chair and get back to work!

Bottom line:  the Sapphire XLs are great speakers capable of recreating a sonic landscape and reproduce musical as the composer intended it to be heard as well or better than speakers that cost 5 times more! And they play BASS! I have heard many small speakers and these are quite excellent in the areas that are important to me.
 
I have a beautiful pair of Ruby Heart VSM-Ms for sale now.

Best regards,

Terry Rossen
TRI Audio Marketing
Sales Development for DH Labs

301-540-1156

[Eric]

Thanks for the great review. These are great speakers

[ricmon]

Hello,

IBack here in the Socailist Republic of Maryland ...

yho give me a PM.  I'm looking for a new pair of speakers and I live in DC and wouild like to here the saphires.

[Terry Rossen]

I signed in properly and reposted an edited version.


BTW, The Sapphire XLs remind me of the day I had in the Aerial room at the San Francisco High End Show back in 97...I sat down between the 10Ts and grooved to Voodoo Chile by Jimi.  I was almost tripping to the sound while snobs got angry for me not sitting properly stiff in the line of chairs.  

It brought back memories of enjoying music, and not analyzing it. I had my own room down the hall with a 4 channel dCS tape deck, four Mach 17 speakers and a dozen Clayton Audio mono amps producing real surround "you are in the freaking middle of the orchestra" from a tape that John Marks had brought in for demo.  

Music should make you move!  My little Sapphires make me get up and dance!

You should have seen me at the 2006 CES!  My room had plenty of head bangers and dancing!  Although we did have plenty of critical listeners with jaws agape at my selection of tracks.

The CD player we had was the AH! Njoe Tjoeb ugraded and topless!

Best regards,

Terry

[JJG]

Sweet writeup Terry! I had a brief listen to a friend's XLs and I can't wait for more time with them. They are something special indeed!

[Zero]

I am not an ACI owner; wish I could be - -  one day.

Just the same, thanks for the review. I've been drooling at the Sapphire/Force combo for awhile now. Its good to see someone out there enjoys hi-fi, but does not forget the basic principle so many lose sight of - its gotta make ya groove or feel the music!

Cheers!

[budyog]

A6M-ZERO wrote
 

gotta make ya groove or feel the music!

Ain't that the truth! It better make me wanna get up and dance!