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Originally Posted by edstrelow  It's hard to argue about equipment you haven't heard and I haven't heard these speakers. I have seen some other reviews and they are generally positive for "monitor use" which in my understanding means optimised for falt frequency response and power handling. Those are pretty good things to have in any speaker, but there is an issue about detail, which your descriptions seem to gloss over. For example, how do you feel low level detail viscerally? Listen at 120dB?
However, I have heard the Stax SRXIII's which you consider to be in the running as good phones. In fact I owned them and long ago got rid of them. I know there are some fans of them here, but they lacked bass and had a honky midrange. Even run through a pretty good power amp and a transformer I wasn't impressed. At any rate they are 30 year old technology, using low bias and thick diaphragms. If those were my best stat phones, I would probably prefer speakers too.
You mention the 404's, which are representative of modern stats, but don't say what you are running them with. They can be very good although the consensus is that the Omega is better, but at at about 8 times the price it should be. Most complaints about the 404 are about treble etch, and lack of mid bass. However, I sure wouldn't describe them as "misty...vague and impressionistic."
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Given that you rate the Sigma so highly, and
that's a thirty-year-old phone, this is very interesting......
BTW you
did read the other equipment I own, most of which is far newer than thirty-years? And I
do own the 404, Stax's
current #2 phone complete with matching 006t amp, and I'm sorry but the X-III is a far more accurate and detailed phone - at least from 100-5000 Hz. Somebody obviously forgot to tell it that it's thirty years old and it should curl up its toes and die in embarrassment.......
Low-level detail does sound visceral through the JBL's in a way it doesn't through the phones and I'm not listening at lease-breaking levels. For instance, a brushed cymbal will sound palpable in the same way it does live. If you hear live instruments you will sense that the sound is still
physical even when it's very soft. This is one of the things I've been trying to replicate for years. And the stat phones do
not do it, although the X-III comes a damn sight closer than the Lambda or the 404.
You say I gloss over the question of detail but what does all the descriptions of how easily it is to follow the instruments and voices entail?
