I was fortunate to have demo pair for a week. Thank you Rick.
For about 2 1/2 weeks quite a few audio friends had a field day
or two or three comapring & contrasting this speaker to others of similar ilk.
Bottom line a very very nice speaker. Sounds and looks good.
It was not fussy with repsect to sources or ampifiers & it proved
very room friendly. Tubes ( PP EL-34 or 6550 many brands)
Solid Sate ( mosfet or Bipolar / Trivista & Nuvistor--integrated or separates).
If set up
in a normal home environment with the usual care and concern
you will be rewared with a very nice sounding speaker which
aquitted itself quitle well in comparison to Criterions, Merlins, Gibbons,
Monitor Audio, Macintosh, Jm Lab 906, Vienna Acoustic Haydens, Bach, Adire HE 10.1, Beuhorns, Paradigm 60s ver.2 & others. None of these speakers
would be considered Flawed or 'bargain' types...well maybe one or two.
Specifics?
depends on if you are a half full or half empty glass person.
The lower Midrange upper bass is full and warm. SO do you see this
as a good thing or a too good thing. Some material really accentuated this.
Examples would be Keb Mo and James Taylor Hour Glass.
Not my cup of tea was Metalica DVD-A, ALice In Chains SACD
and some other very loud "grunnge rock" but these other guys
liked this type of music and LOUD levels. They were very pleased and amazed. On Classical or Acoustic Jazz I thought the design struck a good balance. Warm and full...not bloated but it was there a bit more than the upper midrange. And this characterisitc proved consistinet at three homes and a Hi-Fi store. ( n.b. the customers and sales staff loved the RC3R...wished for a Center channel-cried a tear when they saw the damage to the gorgeous Rosewood venner)
ON some material the highs could be bright. Examples would be Allison Krauss SACD. Rebecca Pigieon DAD, Classical flute and Jazz Trumpets.
So this can either be a very revelaing speaker of upper fregquencies and recordings or it may be a non rolled off design. This too remained consistient at different locations. Altho' the 34 tubes tamed it a bit.
Most everyone loved the detail and Air...and attributed the brightness to that recording.
ON Solo piano it was good, very good. The image moved a bit side to side
so is this a freq repsonse and differing driver function or the recording. Or the room...after all a 9' Hamburg Stienway might sound a bit unfocused in our rooms....or a reproduction of a big Piano in a good sized hall.
Who knows...but this is a very minor nit to pick.
Solo classical guitar and Flamenco it was very real sounding. One of the few spekaers which made you think yeah a guitarist was in the room or in the other room.
Whether you want or need a sub is a personal choice.
And how you set it up is a perosnal choice. I would run
it full range and just augment the low end with a good sub
which itself is set to 50-60Hz. rolloff wiht a step 24 dB slope.
We tried it in many, many configurations.
The RC3R created quite a buzz around here.
Thanks one again Rick.
