Gary,
Please tell your impressions of the speakers as of today. If you already did, please do again.
To me the Prometheus' main strengths are the open-baffle design and the fact that they give you sound from 100Hz to 10kHz with no crossover to muck things up. Above that there's a tweeter high-passed with a single cap and below that there are two powered woofers, the broadband drivers are run full-range and fall off naturally at either end. This gives you the purity of a single-driver speaker across the most important range of the spectrum without having to sacrifice low or high frequency extension. This is critical for me because while I love the way acoustic guitar sounds on a crossoverless speaker I also want to listen to Tool. And I don't want to give up detail and subtleties either.
Much has been said of the open-baffle sound, which makes the speaker as clean and fast as anything I've heard. Box speakers, especially ported ones (and even very very expensive ones), sound muffled and congested in comparison to some degree or another after listening to the Bastanis. YMMV.
The bass is extremely tight, and probably extends down to somewhere in the high 20's. Never measured it myself so I can't say for sure. The low-midrange is probably the biggest weakness, as the transition from wideband driver to powered woofer isn't perfect. Highs are very smooth and detailed, and the soundstage is again big strength of these speakers. The transparency, clarity and resolution are all superb, to say the least. Those three things are my main goals in a system and my choice in equipment reflects that.
Mine are set up nearfield since I have them in such a small room, and the way I describe the sound is that it's almost like listening to a room-sized pair of headphones. They're forward in the sense that it feels like the music is happening right in front of you, but not in a way that makes it seem like vocalists are yelling at you. This may not be for everyone.
Synergy with the Clari-T is amazing, due in large part to the 100dB/W efficiency of the speakers but also because the Clari-T doesn't handle bass duty (a known weakness of the T-amps is drop-off in the low bass). With my Clari-T (upgraded and basically the same one as in this latest review) and Vinnie-modded iPod I think my system is up to par with most anything I've heard. I wouldn't call it the best but It's certainly not completely outclassed by the very best systems I've heard. The only speakers I've listened to that did enough things better that I'd think of them as a substantial upgrade were from WLM, and they were expensive. $15k or so? However much it was too much for me to spend, although I still lust after them
. For what I've invested though, maybe $4k or so, I'm pretty happy.
Hope that helps.
Gary
