sonddek
Trade: SUPATRAC
My plan did come together.
I played through KEF R3 Meta and Reference Fidelity Components Rubato, which is a reflex two-way coaxial with a very solid ply cabinet at £2000. I was very happy with both but you all know the KEFs so I'm going to talk about the Rubatos.
The first thing to notice about them is that they go much deeper than you would expect from a speaker of this size and weight - Paul of RFC tells me they comfortably reach 40Hz and I can confirm that they produced a deep, rich and very tuneful sound. It was easy to hear the pitch and timing of every hemidemisemiquaver right down in the low registers of acoustic and electric bass alike. At the end of the show we pushed them a bit and they also go loud and stay clean until you really go too far. Their output is going to be more than enough for any reasonable domestic listening, and they are quite efficient if you like to festoon your room with those pretty glowing things. We had several people say that our room was among the best they had heard at the show, and I found the rich deep sound organic and beguiling.
Being co-axial, with moderately narrow front baffles they had great imaging, disappearing laterally and producing a great illusion of instrument distance. No ten-foot-high violins with these. They also had a lot of realism and snap. I had no sense of any region of uncertainty wherever crossing over takes place, so midrange instruments sounded very life-like indeed. I can't fault them in any way, so if you're in the market for a beautifully and cleverly made two-way stand-mount in that price bracket I urge you to give them a listen. This is a brand new speaker but I hear that orders are already rolling in so you will probably get them sooner if you waste no time.
I did manage to pick up a Naia and a P10 the night before the show. I mounted a Blackbird on the P10 for Friday morning, so we were up and running, but it got very busy very quickly and I could not find ten minutes to install cartridge on the Naia and set it up. A massive thanks to Mark (YNWAN) who offered to set it up while I was gassing to visitors - there are few people I would trust as firmly to do so. He did warn me that he was suspicious that, as is often the case, the VMN540ML may not have seated and clicked in fully, but in the excitement I did not check it. The Blackbird install had been a bit pressured too so although we did some a/b comparisons on Friday I did not feel that we had either deck quite right. The majority of listeners, including I, seemed to prefer the Naia on the majority of tracks even though it was considerably quieter.
On Saturday morning I spent an hour setting up both decks from scratch, and this time I felt they were both a lot closer to their full potential. I swapped the styluses between the two decks several times but could hear nothing to suggest they were different. The Naia sounded superb, and I could feel it's authority and flow, but despite that I felt the P10/Blackbird just edged ahead on dynamics, drama, timbral variety and resolution of timing. To me it felt a bit richer, but even though I'm trying to be objective I know it's impossible for me because I have a horse in the race.
A visitor, to my amazement (;-) suggested DSOTM when Roy Gandy arrived so I was able to introduce the patron of these two wonderful turntables. He and I sat in the back row for an a/b of 'Money' and Roy was so polite that I noticed he was even tapping his foot while the P10/Blackbird was playing. A true gent! And a surreal experience.
On Sunday, eventually, we got a Blackbird going on the Naia with an AT33SA, and for me this was the best we achieved during the show.
Altogether a lot of fun and a very interesting experiment. I thought the Rega decks sounded great. They are also very beautiful objects with their Terminator T-1000 finished arms and exo-skeletal chassises.
And almost nobody noticed the naughty amps behind the curtains ;-)
I can't wait for next year's Bristol show!
I played through KEF R3 Meta and Reference Fidelity Components Rubato, which is a reflex two-way coaxial with a very solid ply cabinet at £2000. I was very happy with both but you all know the KEFs so I'm going to talk about the Rubatos.
The first thing to notice about them is that they go much deeper than you would expect from a speaker of this size and weight - Paul of RFC tells me they comfortably reach 40Hz and I can confirm that they produced a deep, rich and very tuneful sound. It was easy to hear the pitch and timing of every hemidemisemiquaver right down in the low registers of acoustic and electric bass alike. At the end of the show we pushed them a bit and they also go loud and stay clean until you really go too far. Their output is going to be more than enough for any reasonable domestic listening, and they are quite efficient if you like to festoon your room with those pretty glowing things. We had several people say that our room was among the best they had heard at the show, and I found the rich deep sound organic and beguiling.
Being co-axial, with moderately narrow front baffles they had great imaging, disappearing laterally and producing a great illusion of instrument distance. No ten-foot-high violins with these. They also had a lot of realism and snap. I had no sense of any region of uncertainty wherever crossing over takes place, so midrange instruments sounded very life-like indeed. I can't fault them in any way, so if you're in the market for a beautifully and cleverly made two-way stand-mount in that price bracket I urge you to give them a listen. This is a brand new speaker but I hear that orders are already rolling in so you will probably get them sooner if you waste no time.
I did manage to pick up a Naia and a P10 the night before the show. I mounted a Blackbird on the P10 for Friday morning, so we were up and running, but it got very busy very quickly and I could not find ten minutes to install cartridge on the Naia and set it up. A massive thanks to Mark (YNWAN) who offered to set it up while I was gassing to visitors - there are few people I would trust as firmly to do so. He did warn me that he was suspicious that, as is often the case, the VMN540ML may not have seated and clicked in fully, but in the excitement I did not check it. The Blackbird install had been a bit pressured too so although we did some a/b comparisons on Friday I did not feel that we had either deck quite right. The majority of listeners, including I, seemed to prefer the Naia on the majority of tracks even though it was considerably quieter.
On Saturday morning I spent an hour setting up both decks from scratch, and this time I felt they were both a lot closer to their full potential. I swapped the styluses between the two decks several times but could hear nothing to suggest they were different. The Naia sounded superb, and I could feel it's authority and flow, but despite that I felt the P10/Blackbird just edged ahead on dynamics, drama, timbral variety and resolution of timing. To me it felt a bit richer, but even though I'm trying to be objective I know it's impossible for me because I have a horse in the race.
A visitor, to my amazement (;-) suggested DSOTM when Roy Gandy arrived so I was able to introduce the patron of these two wonderful turntables. He and I sat in the back row for an a/b of 'Money' and Roy was so polite that I noticed he was even tapping his foot while the P10/Blackbird was playing. A true gent! And a surreal experience.
On Sunday, eventually, we got a Blackbird going on the Naia with an AT33SA, and for me this was the best we achieved during the show.
Altogether a lot of fun and a very interesting experiment. I thought the Rega decks sounded great. They are also very beautiful objects with their Terminator T-1000 finished arms and exo-skeletal chassises.
And almost nobody noticed the naughty amps behind the curtains ;-)
I can't wait for next year's Bristol show!
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