Hey Rob, I dont now if youve got a chance to listen to any Australian made products, but the WAR Audio DIANNE is highly recommended.
Also try transmission Audio, Bo made the original redrose monitors for Mark Levinson.
I will hopefully be joing the Sonic Flare crew in the near future, just now that I have finished dthe Tertiary education term in Australi,I can start writing. oh, and setting up a mstering studio /listening space.
Did you rate the Aurum Cantus Volla?
I have a personal tendency towards ribbon's put to good use..

Hey Marck, thanks for the head up -- I'll see if there's anywhere around I can list to the DIANNE and Transmission Audio stuff. Always on the lookout. Only Australian product I've heard, and this was a few years ago, were some Krix speakers. I've heard Osborne makes great speakers, but never personally had a listen. Not sure how much Australian stuff has penetrated the market here.

I'm a ribbon fan as well (check out my bio) -- speed, liquidity and transparency are qualities of the technology well designed/implemented. I presently own VMPS RM40s, which have 4 ribbons midsper side and one ribbon tweeter. I was very impressed w/the Volla, btw.

Transmission Audio's M-5 Signature hybrid speaker might be the prettiest speaker I've ever seen (if only in print). Check it out for major lust:

http://www.transmissionaudio.com

It does look cool. Would love to hear it.

ProAc 1SC is the best monitor speaker... IMHO.
The clarity and dinamics of the midrange are unsurpassable,

ProAc 1SC is the best monitor speaker... IMHO.
The clarity and dinamics of the midrange are unsurpassable,

Though I haven't heard them for an extended time, I like the ProAcs. Though as Josh points out, there is no absolute sound. Some speakers do some things better than others, but it comes down to a taste issue. There are alot of good designs out there.

as far as monitors are concerned, my Marten Duke's are definitley something to check out - I always described them as headphone loudspeakers regarding resolution, transparency and the ability to make you hear the tiniest of details in a recording. Alas, the Druids have taught me that sometimes that may just be a tad too much and you become slave to the recording and its process rather then the music itself...

I personally AM A FAN OF RIBBON'S TOO. I will be investing in either transmission audio or WAR Audio when funds permit.
I currently use Definitive technolgy BP-30, in an acoustic modelled (again, funds permitting) istening room.
Possibly I will settle for all Accuton drivers,Also distributed here in Aus by WAR AUDIO, in a desigj of my own.
Not to plug the company, but I purchased my belcanto amp from Pat (head cheese at WAR AUDIO) and found the service remarkable. Aussie retailers seem to lack customer service skills.

The too much detail issue is tricky. Yeah, for us analytical listeners it can be a barrier to immersion and simple enjoyment. It's not quite the same, but in cinematography, we're often softening the image in a way that more approximates how the eye/mind sees. Maybe the amount of detail/ambience should be left up to the musicians/recording engineer -- and the speakers should extract everything that's there. I certainly don't want a tv monitor to further soften my image.

Having said all this, I find lack of transparency (which is interrelated w/detail) a barrier to engagement, particularly w/voices. Love that you-are-there quality that some speakers reproduce.

Haven't heard the Marten stuff, but have been interested to do so for awhile. Wonder what the stuff goes for in Sweden as I might be going there in a few months.

it would be nice IF recording engineers would do that, however, that will never happen, if anything the crap they are outputting seems to get worse each year.
What's funny is that listening to the Druids I certainely don't miss any of the extreme resolution things going on with the Marten's... I think it ultimatley makes the Druids more musical.

Do you think it's primarily the detail (or somewhat lack thereof) that makes the Druids more musical than the Duke, or is there something else going on as well?

How would you rate the coherency across the frequency spectrum of the Marten vs. the Zu? Having heard them side by side, I find ATCs to be an interesting comparison vs. Zu. Definitely different design priorities.

As noted in the review, I found the Tones pretty forgiving too -- an easy listen.

Do you think it's primarily the detail (or somewhat lack thereof) that makes the Druids more musical than the Duke, or is there something else going on as well?

How would you rate the coherency across the frequency spectrum of the Marten vs. the Zu? Having heard them side by side, I find ATCs to be an interesting comparison vs. Zu. Definitely different design priorities.

As noted in the review, I found the Tones pretty forgiving too -- an easy listen.

And yeah, it would be nice if engineers did that. Some do. Others just compress, then compress some more. Among other things. Didn't Phil Spector or someone like that say rock 'n roll is compression?

Speaking of headphones, I'm curious why SonicFlare doesn't any sort of headphone coverage? After all, the most logical and necessary accessory for the iPod-generation is a pair of nice headphones. Also, people who are young might not be able to afford a full, two-channel setup due to living constraints. Headphones can fill in this gap by offering tremendous price-to-performance ratio. I mean, sure, they don't offer the same visceral impact or the realistic soundstage, but they can provide a hell of a lot in other areas such as coherency, detail, intimacy, etc. Anyways, just something that I'm curious about

Robert,

it can perhaps be described as irony that the Druids which have less perceived resolution then the Martens are because of this ultimate lack to the n'th degree more musical, ie. with the Martens I focus more on time laps fotos of the music (listening for the extreme details), whereas the Druids flow continuously, or rather, I don't tend to take mental time laps snap shots of the music. I think it is important to say however, that people must not assume that these "less resolved" HF's are somehow robbing you of detail. Quite to the contrary, detail is there in spades (trust me, this is not an intended oxymoron) as is evident in Duke Ellington's Blues in Orbit hybrid disc. I have this running via the SB3 and the AcousticArts CD player - track 6 Blues in Blueprint is a perfect example of how resolving the Druids actually are. You hear all of the instruments "clacking" through each note, with clear, distinct rendered lines between each "clack"... The image size is also more realistic compared to the Martens; the Duke's scaling down the image slightly - the Druids have this awesome ability to acuratley portray the size of an orchestra or recording, not only in depth and width, but height. The Marten Dukes almost sound too analytical here, giving me more then I really need to hear in order to enjoy the rythmic flow of the music. As to the Druids sounding forgiving... not here really. Take an average modern day recording: The Killers. Hard, compressed and horrible sounding (though great music), the Druids give you all that the recording is: crap! On a different note, the horn loaded tweeters (on the Druids) are IMHO sensational, as they do not exhibit any of the nasal qualities typically associated with horn loaded drivers.... very, very smooth!

Got it Danny, thanks for the explication. Not surprisingly, many of the qualities and overall presentation you describe apply to the Tones as well, though I think the lack of transparency I hear w/them might not be the case w/the Druids.

I found the same smoothness w/the tweeters, btw -- its a part of why I think the Tones do strings so well. Gonna have to check out that Duke Ellington recording.

lastly... (woke up trying to figure this resolution thing out)...

ok, I think I have found the best explanation: where the Marten Dukes carry "resolution" on their sleeve shouting "hey, look at me!" the Druids are more understated, preferring to say "ok... here's the resolution, but you can also listen to music"...

anyway, that's it!

Re: Blues in Orbit - yeah man, get that cd, its absolutley awesome!!!

Re: Duke Ellington CD's in general: Sony began a massive reissue project w/ Duke stuff back in 98/99, however, the first reissues were all rather bright, dry and shrill sounding... the last 6 or 7 discs however, were done streight to DSD (sadly not available as SACD's!!! except for the Blues in Orbit disc which was a MoFi release) and sound absolutley spectacular...

Sounds like the voicing of the Druids is simply more musical to your ears.

Just ordered Blues in Orbit -- looking forward to it.

Danny.
Could you please elaborate on the 6 or 7 last albums from Sony.
Can't seem to find them on Amazon.
Thanks

Nuno

Nuno,

the discs I have are the following:

Masterpieces
Uptown
Piano in the foreground
Piano in the background
Blues in Orbit (no longer in print MoFi SACD, though released on regular cd

each of these were mastered via DSD and then truncated to 16bit... they sound fantastic, and far superior to some of the first Ellington titles they re-released.

Danny.

Thanks for the info.
Click- buying as I type...

Regards.
Nuno

Robert,
I'm excited to see your going to use a Nuforce Integrated in a system approach. As an owner I love what the Nuforce integrated brings to the affordable table. I have paired the Nuforce with a MF X-Ray v3 CD player and B&W 603
floorstanders for a sweet,open sound. Looking forward to your review.

Taosman,

I expect the Nuforce will be the integrated of my quest for a small, high quality bedroom system -- this will be the subject of a future article(s). Presently it resides in my bedroom w/a Red Wine Audio modded SB as the source, and a pair of wall-mounted Amphion Ions. For the bucks, and in a very compact package, this system is really working well.

Robert,

Have you auditioned the ATC SCM11 yet? Heard nothing but great stuff about them. Kindly let me know how you find them compared to ProAc 1SC or the Aurum Cantus Volla ;)

Cheers

Quote: "Now I’m sure those $22K Magicos are revelatory and all, but I’m American. I want a speaker that can really rock and roll. I want a speaker that can get me out of my seat and dancing. I want a speaker that can move some air.
I want the sound of power. And for that, size matters."

These are the exact reasons why you must try the Magico Mini. Just for the sake of knowing how Magic justifies the price tag and why TAS and Stereo Sound (Japan) has respectively named the Mini product of the year (2006 and 2005).

My vote is for Vandersteen 1c speakers.They don't take up much floor space and won't show chip and bangs since they are a sock covered speaker.What does a bird say in the morning,"cheap,cheap".You will have to really go into very expensive front ends to outrun the potential of these speakers and they rock with very good bass.Their biggest attribute is their soundstaging and tonality.At less then a grand(800} I think sans dedicated c note stands they are the 800 pound gorilla in the affordable speaker range and will make many speakers that cost
thousands more sound broken.