sfdoddsy

Yes it is. Len Wallis check everything before sale and give a three month warranty. The Revels are in great nick.

Item: Revel Performa C30 centre speaker Location: Surry Hills Sydney Price: $450 Item Condition: Excellent Reason for selling: I don't use a centre Payment Method: Pickup - Cash, Paypal, COD Only Extra Info: This is the very cool Revel C30 centre speaker. It is a hefty sealed three way that should match most good systems. Retail was $4K. Heaps of great reviews. Pick up only as I don't have the box. Pix are of the actual speaker. The M20s are not for sale (yet). :) Photos: Advertisements without photos of the actual item will not be approved.

There's a well-established scientific theory that says things are approaching perfection when the differences between them diminish to inconsequence. IMHO, this is mostly the case with amps and DACs, and certainly the case with cables and the tweaky zones of our little hobby. The one area where you still find divergence is speakers (room acoustics too, but that's not something you can buy a solution to). There is scientific evidence that certain aspects of speaker performance are preferred by most people. This has been championed by Harman(Revel/JBL) most vociferously and is now exemplified by the CEA 2034-A-2015 (ANSI) standard, which is open to all companies. Basically this involves flat anechoic response, a downward sloping room response, and well controlled dispersion. Harman's own speaker obviously do well in this, but others like KEF, Dutch & Dutch, Kii and most professional monitors do as well. And when you listen to speakers from such 'science-based' manufacturers, they sound more similar than different. I've recently had speakers from KEF, Revel and GoldenEar in my main listening room, and (bass extension aside) you could easily swap one for the other. So in that sense, the end game as specified above is achievable, especially when you add DSP and Room EQ into the equation. However, a significant percentage of audiophiles don't appear to be interested in this kind of 'accurate' end game and choose speakers which diverge wildly. For me the best example of this is the cult of Zu. Their speakers measure and sound wildly inaccurate, but many swear by them. Likewise B&W and PMC know how to design an accurate speaker, but deliberately choose not to. Check the difference in measurements from, say, the Matrix 805 from 1993: https://www.stereophile.com/content/bw-matrix-805-loudspeaker-measurements and the 805 D3 from 2017: https://www.stereophile.com/content/bowers-wilkins-805-d3-loudspeaker-measurements I recently listened to a pair of Spatial open baffles which also fail miserably at CEA 2034-A-2015 and sound objectively much worse than any of my speakers, but which were seductively different. I myself am guilty. I have had DIY open baffles as my main speakers for the past 15 years. They are based on the very scientific theories of Siegfried Linkwitz, but also do not meet CEA 2034-A-2015 anywhere near as well as, say, my KEF R3s. And my all-time fave speakers that I owned were Apogee Duettas. Inaccurate but magic. All of which is to say that certain speakers may be approaching the end game, but our funny auditory preferences are nowhere close.

I'll take them

On a whim I just bought a pair of SF Grand Pianos. They look great and were cheap(ish) plus I have very fond memories of my SF Concertos, the first ‘high end’ speakers I ever owned. They actually hold up very well against my ultra-modern KEF R3s, both sonically and in measurements. It’s a different kind of sound, closer to the lively PMCs I also auditioned recently than the more neutral KEF. But very enjoyable. My wife has a thing against floor standers, but she also likes leather so we’ll see what her response is when she gets back from holiday.

Item: Martin Logan Fresco i Location: Surry Hills Sydney Price: 500 or non-silly offer Item Condition: Good Reason for selling: Orders Payment Method: Pickup - Cash, Paypal, COD Only Extra Info: I've owned these longer than any piece of audio equipment except my trusty sub. I had two pairs, but sold one here recently. This are the updated model with gloss black cabinet and upgraded drivers. The Fresco was Martin Logan's first non-electrostatic speaker. What makes them special is that they use (although M-L didn't admit it) the superb Bohlender Graebener Neo 8 and Neo 3 planar drivers along with very good regular dynamic drivers. They are a great match for ESLs as surrounds, and excellent as main speakers in their own right. They can be used horizontally or vertically, and include the wall mounts. Retail was $3K for the pair. You should buy them. Mine have slight signs of use and one has a small paint thing on the back from a lazy painter. Easily removed I suspect. They are sonically excellent. I no longer have the box so it is pickup only from Surry Hills Sydney. Photos: Advertisements without photos of the actual item will not be approved.

This is spoken for, pending payment.

I've been using Seas Excel C18 EN001 coaxials in my open baffle for 4 years or so. They are magnesium. At one stage the drivers were removed from the market for a couple of months and then replaced with the C18 EN002. The explanation from Seas was that the original version had problems in 'extreme' environments. http://www.seas.no/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=528:new_king_coax&catid=41&Itemid=194 So obviously there was an issue somewhere. Mine have not shown anything like the corrosion in the DIY link, although there is some slight discolourations which annoys me aesthetically. Especially since they cost $500 US each. Previously I used the Seas W22 magnesium driver for over ten years in my Linkwitz Orion-based open baffles without any problems at all. So I wouldn't use this as a reason to avoid the Excel magnesium drivers. They are very very good, albeit they do need special care in the crossover to control the breakup even when you cross them low. I'm not sure how you could 'not like' the sound of Seas W series drivers. Unless you are fond of distortion. That said, there have been some equally good mid-bass drivers introduced in recent years which are cheaper (SB Satori) or still pricey but easier to work with (Scanspeak Illuminator) or even pricier, harder to work with, prone to disintegrating but cooler (Accuton). For much cheaper the Dayton RS series is awfully close. As are the SB mids used by Revel.

Thanks. I think I’ll take my continuing curiosity to the Lenehan thread.

I don’t want to hijack your thread, but what do the toppers do? Back on topic, these seem like a bargain given the retail price. GLWS

I also used to own the OM6. Really good speaker. From memory it would still compete with the Martin Logans, Definitive Technologies and GoldenEars of this world. The price is a bargain. Were they in Sydney and I could sneak them in, I’d be tempted.

It’s a debatable thing. Theoretically, multiple subs are better than single subs when it comes to evening out room modes. And most of the research on multiple subs is based on running them in mono below 80hz. Two is better than one, but three is better than two, and four a bit better again. When I had a big dedicated room, I found the best measured results were with three subs, two at the front, one at the rear. The problem with using this a basis to not use stereo subs is that whilst it is easy to measure the effect of three mono sub sources, it is very hard to measure the effect of stereo sub sources, because you are only measuring one speaker/sub combo at a time. You can’t measure how they combine. Again, theoretically, since most bass is mono, they should act like two mono bass sources, but it is impossible to prove. It’s also, as noted, much harder to EQ and integrate stereo subs. But it is possible. I used a MiniDSP fed from the pre-outs of my receiver/pre-pro and EQed each sub via the MiniDSP, although I could als have done it via the Room EQ in the Anthem. My subs (Ryhtmiks) had a second LFE input which I fed from the summed sub out. So I could switch between stereo subs and mono by switching bass management. The mono subs always measured better, but I preferred ( by a slim margin) listening to stereo subs. This was crossing over between 50-80hz. Crossing higher than that tilted things more towards stereo. In my current room I have one sub to the side. It measures fine crossed at 80hz, but (and it may be psychological) I feel like I can hear it so I cross lower. I tried stereo subs with goid effect but my wife wouldn’t buy it. This is a long-winded way of saying go stereo. Especially at 200hz.

The higher end Yamaha Aventage receivers have stereo sub outs. YPAO sucks, but they also have very handy manual parametric EQs which can be very useful for DIY.

I hate to sound like an objectivist curmudgeon (although I am one), but I have owned an MRX300, MRX700, AVM50, and now an MRX520. I've used them alone, and with power amps ranging from Krell to Rotel. The only time I noticed a difference was when I had inefficient Maggies, and Apogee Duetta ribbon speakers. There has been no difference in sound quality on any sensible speaker ranging from PMC and GoldenEar to my current supposedly hard to drive KEFs. Even with the Apogees (which are infamous for being both inefficient and for dropping below 2 ohms) the MRX700 sounded just fine until it ran out of gas. Other receivers (and I'm talking about you, Yamaha) shut down. I've also flirted with other pre-amps/pre-pros and receivers and the only noticeable difference in sound quality has been the use of ARC versus no EQ or crappy EQ. ARC Genesis (despite its quirks) is a considerable step ahead again. If your receiver can drive your speakers to the levels you want, adding a power amp won't make a difference. Spend the money on better speakers.

Lots of nibbles, no bite. So a wee price drop. I'll also chuck in shipping.