JGale

You pronounce it like his counterpart....Matisse!

Why do these tug so earnestly on my walletheartstrings?

Wait! I'm not dead yet!

This? butt smaller.

Something, something snakes and mustard?

BINGO! We have a winner!

NICE! but that drummer is having just too much fun though!

Great Bass players. Great Bass performances. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MAqDhbWSL0

Wait, what!?

Look what I found on Craigslist for $400. PSB Stratus Minis. Same drivers as the top half of the Golds. Rounded corner cabinets. Stratus Golds $700. I'll deliver as far as Richmond.

Izzat Danica Patrick's number?

Are they considering a children's line of guitars?

http://www.incredibox.fr/en/#/application

Ahhhh. Finally a break in the action... The equipment driving the Boxers was top notch. A gigabigass media server that "rips the audio at 32bits from the DSP before the filtering and when retrieved, reconstitutes a redbook standard signal with proprietary filtering"...blah, blah. Around 160 wpch of Mark Levinson amplification, MIT cables, cheap stands (recommended by the manf. apparently). Large room with 12 foot ceilings. He had a bunch of stuff queued on an Ipad. My notes: "Kottke's 12 string Crow River Waltz sounded like a beat up Bozo I once heard. All earthy and in your face. Nora Jones' piano had that, what is it, that soft woodiness the pads impart when they hit the strings. A faint pofp to the notes, so fuk'ng beautiful. I have never listened to Sarah McLachlan. All I know is she pimps sick dogs and cats on UPN. Apparently she has the voice of an angel and you can hear it rebounding off the studio wall 4 feet beyond her and slightly to the right. The wall angles away to the left from the mics POV. WTF! I started getting a boner. A boner! It was that good. Sinatra/Basie was a little more laid back than I remember through the PSBs. The bass was not remarkable, present, but in the bakground. I assume that this will change with break in. If the mid-range gets any better I'll have to get a prescription from my Doctor to listen to them. They filled the room side to side. Not as vertically large a presentation as the Arcs would have put out but then 12 foot guitars are not normal, are they? Just a beautiful sweetness, like a candy that imparts more richness than sweetness. Real Vermont maple sugar candy. Yummy. Like I said. Just beautiful. For sale: One set of well cared for PSB Stratus Golds. Thank you John. Edit to add: Sarah McLachlan is how it's spelled.

Just back in from West Virginia. First time rock climbing in a long while. Aleve is my verybestfren right now. More later, but in brief, the Nola's were beautiful, just beautiful. New, out of the box with so much settling in to do, they had magic galore. Your review of the x12s is all that stands in my way Sensei.

Well. That. Was. Just. Fine. /stridentoldwomanvoice A very disappointing demo of the Golden Ear speakers. It went something like this (cue Beverly Hillbillies soundtrack): Hello. Do you have the Golden Ear monitors in house that I could listen to? Sure we do. Come on down! (travel to store) (takes me into a room full of expensive glass) Yup, we got all good stuff here, 24bit, 96khz, tubes, turntables, everything, but we ain't got those Aon thingys. Got the smaller wall mounts though...let me show you the towers (proceeds to demo the GE Triton towers with a 50W TEAC CD receiver) You got to toe these ian to point straight at you head to get the full effect! (puts on a Dire Straits CD) I am instantly transported back to 1971, to my sisters (then) 20 year old Dodge, the 4x6 in the dashboard. I swear, it was just like real life! In mono, because half the time I sat there he was standing in front of the left speaker fiddling with the tube sock grill. You shouldn't have to give up 40 IQ points just to live in the mountains. Next up, this guy: http://tesva.com/high_fidelity.aspx He has Nola Boxers and Contenders hooked up to Mark Levinson. Two hours to Charlottesville. Hope it's worth it.

PRA S-10 PRA! The Denon PRA is a straight preamp. The Rotel only has RCA in. I'm running balanced to the PMA. RCAs to the Rotel. Tributaries flat cables bi-wired to the PSBs. I would love to keep the PSBs, but the bass was overwhelming in my last room and this one here is almost half the volume. I heard this system complete at a dealer. One of those situations where a Mom and Pop hired this young gun who talked them into higher end gear than usual and the neighborhood wouldn't support it. He was leaving for bigger markets and this was an albatross to the owners. 40% off! Edited all above to correct my goof. It is a Denon PRA S-10 preamp.

Heeey! You just recommended the Aons because you discerned I have the hots for passive radiators!! No fair. I am reminded of Cylons, in a good way, like: and extremley intrigued. The search for nearest dealers begins. Maybe DC? Edited to add: Shit. There are two Golden Ear dealer locations minutes from me in Roanoke. WTF, O.

P.S. Components for this journey are: Rotel RB990-BX. 330W per into 4 ohms. LOL! Denon DCD S-10 Denon PRA S-10 (corrected nomenclature)

And, we're back. Given that HT is not a priority, I thought I would beef up my music listening and live with the SR-1 for movies. Here is what I am looking at: NHT Classic Three, $800/pr, three way design. PSB Imagine B, $1100/pr, two way design. Drop dead fu(king gorgeous. Dynaudio Excite x12, $1200, two way. Source components will stay the same for a while, and I can look for a single box amplification solution and a new source like the Emotiva or the Oppo. TL;DR - Get new speakers and wait on the Surround Sound till it becomes important to us. What do you think of my logic and/or choices to audition? As always, should you or any of your force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow and knowledge of your actions. Thanks you in advance.

Excellent advice (as always). Thank you. I've spent a lot of hours recently pouring over reviews and specs and trying the "gather all the data and let it sort itself out in your subconscious" approach. Giving me headaches at best, but still exciting. I'd forgotten how much fun messin' about in speakers can be... Oddly, I just crossed the Totems off the list last night and I read this today. Hmmm. Anyway, here is my latest thinking: I loved my Arcs, but I always felt a little uncomfortable with the presentation and the relative obscurity of instruments in a mix. But damn if Dean Peer's "Lord's of the Tundra" didn't rattle the rafters and get the goosebumps all a-twitter. Phil Keaggy's "Addison's Walk" was huge! Sounded like the acoustic solo guitar was 12 feet tall! The Arc's were position sensitive for the bass and ended up 3-4 feet off the back walls. No room for that here. I ended up keeping the PSB's after a month of comparing the two in home. Human voice (Allison Krauss, ) was superb and the PSBs would go loud, low and clear. There is a Montreal Symphony Orchestra recording of Holtz' The Planets (Mars, The Bringer of War) where the melody resolves to this incredibly low organ note and stuffing comes flying out of the woofer port every time every time. LOL!I also have a problem in that the wall immediately behind the right speaker disappears into the Kitchen space leaving me no rear boundary to reinforce/redirect any omni directional signal, leading me to believe a direct radiator would be more effective in this location as well. I have a couple of floorstanding "Room Tunes", turned reflective side in, that help improve the sound-staging, but only just. Annnnnd...I think HT is low on my list of urges to satisfy. In real life, my wife and I rarely go to movie theaters, and after having Netflix for the last three months (new to me), have watched only two movies all the way through. I'm gonna post this much now, 'cuz I don't know how many characters this new format will allow. Back shortly...

Okay. What if...I get a pair of these, thereby ending a long standing craving for their much bigger isobaric brother, and pair them with some lesser speakers for the other channels? In my mythology, I'd gain a (relatively) impressive audio system with the ability to fall asleep on the couch watching Time Bandits in glorious surround sound..

I'm not sure what your budget and space limitations are here, but this is a killer deal, especially considering that the little sub retails for $599 by itself. If you want better with more dynamic range, get four of these (originally $375 ea.), a matching center channel, and a good sub. This sub is more money but should be better (more power, bigger driver) and would double on music better as well (sealed box vs. ported). Those OMD5 satellites are really good. They were originally $750/pair. I like wide dispersion speakers in home theater because together they make a seamless surround soundfield. I can find links to reviews to some of this gear if you're interested. I'm a big fan of separates, and you could go with the Emotiva UMC-1 surround processor plus a 5-channel amp. Or to save shelf space and some money you could get a decent AV receiver from Onkyo, Marantz, Denon, etc. Do you still have your Shahinian Diapasons? John Have you heard any good things about these Cambridge Audio Minx systems? I set up the Stratus Golds and they are far, far too large for the room (damn damn and damn). I'm really just a two channel d00d, so it is painful to consider losing these behemoths, but given the size of the room and the need for in-conspicuousness, I have to go small. TV's okay but listening to music is better. Thanks for listening and commenting. Your opinions hold a lot of weight with moi.

Oy! Such niceness. Shahinian Arcs, but I like the way you think. Nope. Gone to a new home in Michigan. Thank you for the referrals.

Thanks for the advice Sir John. I bought the 42" version of the 1080 Plasma Viera and could not be happier. I am at a loss as to what to do for the audio portion of the equation. I still have my 2-ch system in storage (PSB Stratus Golds, Denon DS separates, Rotel 225Wpc) and the room I have to place all this stuff is 16 wide by 12 deep with the TV on the 16 foot wall and the sitting position up against the opposite wall. Using a Bose soundbar for the moment (I know...) but it is okay for TV. Doesn't do the Who justice though:-)