Yesterday we had a long (4 hr) listening session with this new pair of RM50, Wywire IC's and speaker wire, Classe M1000 monoblocks on the bass and a single Son of Ampzilla (100W/ch) handling the mid/treble. My guest auditioners were a professional musician, and a lifetime audiophile/music lover who brought their own (very demanding) material. The controller was a stock DCX with about 24 hrs of breakin. Sources were my 20 year old Krell MD10 transport and 11 year old Wadia 27ix DAC direct into the DCX. I unlinked the crossovers so I could stagger poles and use asymmtrical slopes around a 223Hz crossover point. Speakers stood 10ft into the room and about 3ft from the side walls with a slight toe in towards the listeners. The horizontal sweet spot was very wide, and everyone had a good seat.
We were able, with this setup in my fully treated 13x31x8ft room, to get the best reproduced sound I have yet experienced. Critical to our success was the DCX's ability to notch out the floor-to-ceiling room mode (-3.0dB at 69Hz, since my ceiling slopes from 8ft to 8 1/2ft), add 1dB of boost at 32Hz to compensate for the lack of backwall reinforcement, cut the 2.16kHz "presence peak" designed into the mid panels 2.8dB, and reduce the 11.5kHz mass-limit peak of the panels at the extreme end of their range 2dB narrowband. There was a 12dB analog crossover to the tweeter array at 9kHz built in to the system so we bould biamp instead of triamp. . We left the grills on and kept the lighting low in order to better concentrate on the music.
It remains to be seen how these speakers sound in the new owner's living room (competely untreated), but they are flexible enough to adapt to any environment. I will report.
