Part One: I want my XLC….money for nothing and my chicks for free (with apologies to Dire Straits)
Preamble:
I don’t think the fact that I love my Sapphire XLs is any secret on this forum. I have stated this numerous times on this forum and others. The transparency and sheer musicality of these speakers have floored me in the past and continue to do so now. When ACI announced that a matching Center was in the works, I was all over it. I think Mike can testify to subtle and not so subtle nudges on my part to ensure that the XLC reached my greedy grubby hands at the earliest. However, when I got the e-mail stating that my XLC had shipped, there was a slight sense of nervousness. What if the XLC didn’t work for me? What if placing it on my CRT based Loewe monitor caused magnetic anomalies in my picture, basically rendering it useless? How embarrassing it would be to return the speaker, given how much I’d pestered Mike D about getting it ASAP.
The arrival:
When the friendly UPS person dropped the XLC off the first thing that struck me was how heavy the package was. On unpacking, I understood why. This thing is built like a tank! When designing quality speakers it is imperative that the cabinet is as sturdy as possible to prevent vibrations that color the sound. Thick walls and bracing are required to prevent the same and all this leads to considerable heft, about 35 pounds in this case. The finish, like those of the Sapphire XLs, is exemplary and mine was in a gloss black. I believe these cabinets are sourced from Mark Schifter, who builds fabulous cabinets! Curiously, while the speaker came safely ensconced in its white jersey sock, the blue chamois to wipe smudges that came with the original XLs was curiously absent! A note must be made of the accompanying instruction manual. This is a thoughtful and carefully planned manual that Japanese manufacturers, and others, will do well to emulate. The 4 drivers (this is W-(MT)-W design) are sourced from reputed driver manufacturers around the world. The woofers are from SEAS and the ‘Revelator’ midrange is from ScanSpeak. In a departure from the XLs, the tweeter is a compact dome from Morel. While I am partial to Morel tweeters (I also own a pair of Morel Octave 5.2s), I wondered about how well it would mach the ScanSpeak tweeters in the XLs. With that in mind, I hooked every thing up and listened a little. First things first, placing the XLC on my CRT caused no magnetic aberrations on my screen. Yippee, we were off to good start. Sound-wise, however, the XLC sounded a bit polite and inoffensive, lacking a little spring in its step. This was made all the more apparent by the nimbleness of the XLs. But there is reason why people stress the importance of speaker break-in. Mike D suggests a minimum of 60 hours and from my experience with the Sapphire XLs, I know that to be true. So I put my old DVD player on repeat and played music continuously for 72 hours. Since then my schedule has allowed me only a couple of very brief listening sessions. I will say that the break-in did dramatically alter the sound for the better. Further details, however, will have to wait for Part 2 of this review!
Next installment:
The listening- ‘Love on the rocks’ or ‘Boom, boom, boom…let’s go back to my listening room’………Stay tuned.
