I’ve had my SGR CX3B’s for several months now and while I know there have been a lot of reviews on SNA about these and other model SGR speakers I thought I might be able to contribute my own story with some pics as well. I’ve also held back till now because there has been a lot of threads/discussion about the SGR speakers generally and I didn’t want to overdo the forum with another SGR thread, but it seems as time goes by, so do more and more threads. (sorry about the dodgy pics)
So what it’s worth here is my (slightly different) take on the SGR CXB3’S.
I first heard these speakers at a GTG evening organized by Anthony from Audio Marketplace at his house here in bayside Brisbane last October 2010. He is the Queensland rep for SGR up here. I had read a lot of posts here on SNA about them, but that wasn’t what spurred me on to make my first personal contact with Anthony .
Many many years ago I was fortunate enough to hear a set of Meridian M10’s ?(long ago, not sure model)anyway they were active, or ”powered “ I think they called them back then. I was struck by their sound. At the time they were quite different to a lot of the other speakers I had seen and heard. I don’t know exactly what it was in audiophile terms, I liked, but I always remembered them and their effect on me and the idea of a ‘built in’ amp really appealed to me as well. So I took the opportunity to hear these active SGR’s when the offer was made.
Rewind to late 2010 early 2011.
I was having a bad few months with my audio equipment.
First off my preamp went DC on me and I sent it off to Trevor(Zaphod Beetlebrox)at Rage audio to see if he could resurrect it after being told by a dealer up here that it was beyond any help at all, at any price(was charged for the privledge too.[ATTACH=CONFIG]38973[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]38981[/ATTACH]
The fault was a two edged sword because I lost my preamp for a while, but Trevor fixed and modified the preamp and really made a very nice improvement to its sound. Then a couple of months later my power amp lost its left channel. I couldn’t believe my luck. Again I sent this off to Trevor, and he did a fantastic job of repairing , and improving the unit. Upon its return I took the lid off and peeked inside and it looks brand new, fantastic.
But as fate would have it, a month or two later the preamp then faulted again. I was beginning to believe I was jinxed. But Trevor fixed the issue at no charge to me even though it wasn’t necessarily a fault related to his previous work. The pre is 20 years old so I wasn’t surprised. Thanks Trevor, great service. Has worked faultlessly since.
Anyho I was getting a “little jaded “with my system by now as you can imagine. As well as all the recent problems, I had for some time been unhappy that my ProAc speakers needed to be pumped up to unacceptable(especially for my wife) volume levels to push [ATTACH=CONFIG]38982[/ATTACH]the sound out into my ‘largish listening ’room. [ATTACH=CONFIG]38976[/ATTACH]I knew I wanted a change but didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I had been out and around listening to whatever speakers I could find in the few shops left in Brisbane. One place had a lovely set of Sonus Faber Guarneri Memento’s for sale around the $5500-$6000 mark. I had recently heard a set of Sonus Faber Toys in another SNA member’s set up and they sounded fabulous. I was particularly struck by their beautiful mid bass. Thanks Goopie. really nice sounding system you have there .So I knew I couldn’t settle for something less than that nice sound and so the Guarneri’s were in my sights.
Then I saw the notice here on SNA about a GTG at Anthony’s house (Audio Marketplace) and I thought it might be interesting to again listen to some active speakers, and also a chance to meet some SNA members at last.
The first speakers I listened to were the CX4’s.They sounded as great as everyone else has said here many times. But just way out of my league pricewise. Later in the evening we fired up the CX3B’s and they were pretty astonishing, especially given their relatively small size. The difference between the 3’s and 4’s were there but I think were more obvious due to where each pair were placed, the settings on the 4’s at the time, and the choice of music(was different for each pair).I can honestly say that as impressed as I was with the 4’s, I was as equally impressed with the 3’s. I knew almost immediately that I could be quite happy with their sound (something of an understatement), but for me the CX3’s were still a lot of money and with my wife recently made redundant , I couldn’t see me affording them in the near future.
I went home somewhat despondent and of course started thinking about my system, what it was that was bugging me about it and what I could do to get over the disillusionment I was feeling as a result of the recent troubles I was having, and, the necessity to push the volume up to get the full sound I wanted from the speakers in my listening room.
I thought about the Toy Sonus Fabers… affordable for me, but then I reckoned that they justified a better amp than I had, and if I got a good amp I would surely need some good(probably expensive)speaker cables. Then I wondered about how I could select an amp that had the right “synergy” with the Sonus Fabers, especially up here in Brisbane with fewer and fewer hi fi shop demo facilities. Then I thought about the cost of all these new parts and pretty soon it was just “doin’ my head in” and I decided to put it all on the backburner. It was all just too hard.
As fate would have it, a few months later ,we came into some unexpected cash and suddenly I was in a position to consider some new gear. Almost simultaneously Anthony contacted me(must be psychic) about my previous interest in the SGR’s, and not long after I was the proud owner of a set of CX3B’s in my favourite finish, Cherry Burl.[ATTACH=CONFIG]38977[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]38978[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]38979[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]38980[/ATTACH]
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