[ooheadsoo]

Freeflier, you might be interested that that reviewer, math phd and prof. at UCLA, likes the tact, and that corner woofer idea. He actually espouses, for efficiency's sake, eq for the bass, dsp related or not, foam for the trebles because the short wavelengths make it impossible to digitally treat for any practical area, and mtm or line arrays for the best mids because they reduce floor/ceiling bounce. He's got interesting articles on his page.

 

[music_man]

i am still planning on hearing them. the dealer i was going to is in an area where there is a transportation issue. i may have to wait untill the construction in the neighborhood is over.

as far as the reviewers few nitpicks they do not put me off. i always sit in the sweet spot. i am coming to accept almost anything these days for what it is. i am starting to think you should only have expectations commensurate with a given products category. $4,500 speakers will not have to work nearly as hard to impress me as $45,000 speakers etc. either would probably be acceptable to me.

likewise, you may notice i decided a $600 cambridge audio amplifier was pretty decent. that is in perspective. if that amplifier was $2,000 i would have been Disapointed.

same thing with tact. it does what it intends to. my original issues with it were personal not sonic. freeflier, i meant you no offense.

music_man

 

[music_man]

i have heard the nuforce s-9's. they are not really my taste. they are very good speakers however. here is something noteworthy. if one has a room less than 250 square feet and likes the sound of the s-9's i think they might like the definitive technology pro monitor 1000's i mentioned earlier even more.

this is along the lines of speakers that sound 5 times larger than they are and cast a "wall" of sound. i think the deftech's are "sweeter". i know that means coloration. i think they sound very good though. especially for $400. they sound too good for $400 actually. they go down to 42hz flat which is amazing for their size.

i figured this out because after i listened to the s-9's i thought to myself "i remember those deftechs sounding like a smaller version of this". i think i was accurate in that assumption because i went back to listen to them. anyone else intrested in tiny speakers that sound 5 times their size should also imho.

music_man

 

[ooheadsoo]

Yes, I suppose you could say that they present in the big wall of sound way. I personally find that much closer to real life. I spent many months in the back of a viola section butted up against about 5 dbl basses behind me. This isn't that kind of wall of sound, imo. I don't know of anything that can replicate that with high fidelity. But more like the imaging I get when listening to a percussion concert in a small hall. Big swathes of sound. I've never heard pinpoint imaging in real life, only through speakers. For example, if I'm plucking on a guitar and there's some fret buzz, I can't tell right away where the fret buzz is coming from and it's less than 2 feet from my ears. I'd have to get that thing right next to my ears and I still might not be able to tell without a lot of trial and error. One of those aural illusion type things that speakers can do. Or maybe it's just my ears.

I'm definitely very interested in the def techs, now.

 

[music_man]

i don't mean to set you up for a let down though. the deftechs are similar in sound signature and delivery. they just do not have quite as much "oomph" as the s-9's. consider them baby s-9's if you will. they fill a room with sound and throw the imaging tall and wide. they do not "pinpoint" very much at all. you cannot say, "that buzz is coming form right there". so if this is what you like, most of it can be had in a much smaller package for much less money.
most of it that is. the fact that they sound as they do given their size is even more amazing than the s-9's i think. even though it is still "less" overall sound output. don't go into the store expecting the same exact thing. think "how close can they come for $400 and 1/8th the size of the s-9's".

i personally thought it was amazing how much sound such small speakers could put out. this is with a sub of course. in 7.1 compared to b@se it was no contest whatsoever.

it was a very big deal for me to hear the s-9's and i did not feel let down in the least. i just personally like my little focals better so far. if i could get the sf momentos to fit in here i'd be even happier. those do have very precise imaging though and do not really throw a giant soundstage. they are very intimate and different than the s-9 or deftech.

one thing to keep in mind. all of deftechs other speakers seem to me to not be very good. it is only the pro monitor 1000's i care for. with a sub. preferably a rel sub. deftechs subs are boomy and will have you walking away thinking the speakers sucked. don't let that happen to you. they must also be setup right. that means not on a 6 foot shelf at magnolia.

i heard them with a creek classic amp and they really sounded good to me. with sony or whatever i doubt they would do as good. they need a warm amp.

if a deftech dealer is not out of your way i'd suggest you just go listen. if it is a big deal to get there i am just saying this is my observation,ymmv as always.

music_man

 

[ooheadsoo]

Yes, the imaging thing is a thing of great personal preference. A handful of years ago when I first started to pursue this hobby, I also wanted that laser imaging, but after comparing what I heard at home to the live music I heard back at school every day, I decided that they were two different things, what you hear live vs what you hear from precise imaging speakers, and I couldn't reconcile them. Other people may just want more of a good thing, i.e. precise imaging. I came to value overall presentation and dynamics more. I felt the s-9 made those banks of sound very similar to live music, as the TAS reviewer also mentioned.

I look forward to hearing the deftechs, they seem like a bargain for home theater.

 

[music_man]

if it is not too much trouble for you could you go listen to them please? i'd like to know what someone else that knows about audio equipment thinks. or if i am crazy.

they are not just ht speakers. they are serious 2 chan contendors. i would take these over a von vr1 anyday! no offense to anyone. that is personal preferance. i think to get a better speaker you'd have to go vr4jr. for instance. it still would not fill the room as big. the vr4jr. will be way more accurate though. look at the size difference. look at the price difference. maybe i am crazy. i'd like someone else to hear and let me know. well really i am not crazy, speakers are highly subjective anyways.

like i said, make sure they are setup right. with a good warm amp. no denon or sony. rel sub at 42hz in the right place. speakers on stands. try to play dave mathews "crash" the whole cd. that is a great demo for wall of sound and these pull it off brilliantly imho. people seem to think because something is less expensive it must be trash. i did too untill i started actually hearing all this cheap stuff from china. as i also said, do not get talked into listening to other deftech's or their sub. that will ruin it for sure.

music_man

 

[ooheadsoo]

Will do, I'll give it a shot. I've become quite complacent when auditioning systems I don't plan on owning. If they don't really impress me in the ways I want to be impressed, I just say that they are ok, or don't say anything at all. Most speakers don't make me want to hand over my credit card right away. Just about any speakers are good enough to make music, if you know what I mean. I can get over the sound of the equipment and just enjoy the music, if I don't plan on forking over cash for it. I'd like to be impressed by the deftechs. If they are as good as you say, they could be a fair investment. Not any time soon, but I'll definitely put them on my list if they have the magic. I don't necessarily consider ht to be a step down from 2 channel. You can be distracted a lot more easily because of the picture, but the media being broadcast in HT situations can be just as demanding or more demanding than your average compressed like a pancake cd. In fact, voice is probably the sound we are most intimately familiar with, and HT's got plenty of that, so it really needs to get the fundamentals down. At $400, the deftechs aren't chump change, but neither are they in the heavy hitters camp. We'll see. Maybe I can swing a visit to a local dealer this week.

Interesting you bring up the vr4jr. I hope to hear them again soon in my friend's new room. Not that he did any special treatment or setup, but the room is fairly large, gives some good room to breathe.

 

[ooheadsoo]

I heard the little deftechs. Not bad for the size, really not bad. They're very reasonably sized. I don't feel qualified them to my impressions of the S-9. I heard them in a roughly 30'x100'x15' room, and the images they cast were fitting for the size of that room. BIG. I heard the deftechs in a small 10'x10'x8' room with only 3 corners. Worst of all, I forgot to bring my own music along. Voices seemed fine in tonal coloration. Piano was very fine. Strings seemed to have some odd coloration, and I didn't hear anything that had strong bass. Definitely no pinpoint imaging, but I'm not sure by any means that it's the same effect as what I got with the s-9. I'll probably go hear it again. Definitely not bad for the size, I liked that.

 

[music_man]

keep three things in mind for the little deftechs. 1,room: say 15x13 four walls. 2,good sub not a deftech one. 3, the deftechs are $400 the s-9's are $4,500!

in all honesty i could own the deftechs to compliment my focals. the focals are very precise and accurate. the deftechs have huge sound for a speaker that size and they arent sloppy,flabby or bloated. i am telling you with the little rel 8"($750) sub set to 42hz in a 220sf room they sounded like the s-9's which were in a 1400sf room.

i'd like to hear them with the cambridge amp we are discussing in another thread. i only heard them with a creek. they sounded pretty good but with the sub now we are at $4,000 with a source. still that is a entire stereo system for that price not just speakers.

of course the cambridge thread has turned into a crapping match so i don't know if anyone will step up and say how it sounds. i know it is warm and these speakers are very efficient so it might be great.

one last thing, make sure the speakers are placed right(on weighted stands) when you listen to them again. also very important! make sure that the plastic base of the speakers have the rubber stick on "feet" applied. if they are coupled to the stand they sound bad.

see, you did not even hear them set up nearly right and you thought they were ok. wait to you hear what they really can do. i am very impressed for $400. i really think it is the polymer housing and radiator done right that is working here.

try to get them to set them up right with a sub before you go to the dealer if you can. i first heard them at magnolia and thought they were ok. then a high end dealer got a used pair once and set them up right and it was a whole different story.

music_man

 

[ooheadsoo]

Fwiw, they were set up on decent stands with the rubber feet on, and about 3 feet from front and side walls. The room had 4 walls but only 3 corners. They did not strike me as being very close in league with the s-9, but yes, they were excellent, especially for the size. The image did not detach from the speakers and hang in the air like the s-9. I am not a good judge of price/value. I fully admit that I feel my judgements regarding many things are worthless if I don't do A/B comparison. Unlike some, I admit my aural memory is roughly on par with what psychoacousticians say the average person has. Btw, the dealer I went to was willing to budge on the price, that may make things even sweeter. Of course, the prices are probably even better online.

On a side note, I just set up my old 2 way bookshelves (diy, called mbow1, cost me around $600 in parts, but can be done closer to $450 in parts if on a tight budget) and am quite satisfied with the sound when coupled to a small LG dvd mini system. I didn't recall them being so dynamic, but I am impressed with them, all over again. A bit on the bright side, the mini system is nothing to write home about - I'm tempted to say it's quite horrible, but I have managed to tweak it into sounding half decent. So I probably won't be getting the deftechs any time soon, but I'll see about auditioning them again. I just feel bad stepping in and out of the showroom without intent to buy.

 

[ooheadsoo]

Musicman, I don't consider the deftech and the s-9 to be in the same league. Maybe this is one small point that will help explain why. Consider that the s-9 is rated to 42hz. Now consider that the deftech is rated to 47hz. However, to get full bass realism, you wanted to connect a rel subwoofer to the deftechs. I, on the other hand, don't think that the s-9 need a subwoofer at all except for the demanding HT or organ enthusiast. On paper, their bass frequencies are separated by a mere 5hz in the mid 40s. In actual sound, their presentation are not that close, imo.

I would replace my mains with the s-9 in a heartbeat. The deftechs did not do that for me. They are very impressive for their size, but imo, not s-9 caliber. How do they stack against your focals?

Ok, so deftech doesn't specify the -10 point for the 47hz number, but it's not unreasonable. It certainly puts out much more well behaved bass than you would expect it to.

 

[music_man]

the deftechs are not as good as the s-9's. they are not as good as my focals either. they are $400 not $4,500! i was simply pointing out that they are miles beyond their actual price. let's say they 'could' sell for $1,000. i think they could. however from $1,000 to $4,500 is a big difference.

i don't think you would like they focals. for the reason i don't like the s-9's as much. you and i have different tastes in this regard. this is highly subjective stuff. i doubt anyone that knows what they were listening to would pick the deftechs over the nuforce's or the focal's. i do think they(deftech) can compete with the vr-1's. which is a pretty big feat given their price and size. then again, of course that is biased since i don't really like the vr-1 and think it is overpriced. this will be one of many ongoing areas where chesebert and i disagree.

the focals have a tight sweet spot and cast an intimate soundstage. they are rather "sterile","clinical", unremarkable. quite the opposite of the s-9's(that grow into these 10 foot monsters). that is all i meant the deftechs have in common with the s-9's. they put out much more sound then their size would suggest. the s-9's are much larger speakers than the deftechs that put out much more sound than their size would suggest. i see some of the deftech in the s-9's. just better, more refined and more polished all the way around. again, $4,500 vs. $400. use your imigination to hear the similar sonic signature hidden in there somewhere.

i really like the momentos since they are a combination of both what the s-9 and the focal do. they add what i think is a delicious flavor to almost any receipe. that means colorization though. if you want pure and natural forget these. they impart their beauty on any well made recording. the strings are especially amazing to me. besides their price(13 grand) i don't have room for them where i'd want them anyways.

so i am keeping my focals for the moment. probably quite a while. i am "rolling" integrated amps which is getting darn expensive. i loose my shirt everytime i trade in. per my other thread i think the focals could be happy with a cambridge 840a, i could cut my losses already and call it a day.

anyways, i never meant to say the deftechs were by any means high end speakers. i meant they are a very good value. upper mid-fi at lower mid-fi prices i'd say. i suggested to anyone that liked the s-9 type presentation and could not afford them maybe they could settle for the deftechs while they save up or whatever.

music_man

 

[ooheadsoo]

I think your description of the s-9 growing into 10 foot monsters is quite apt. The deftechs have a very strong hint of that. The package is really quite attractive, as well. Solid cabs, nice gloss, integrated grill. They're almost the size of satellite speakers like the klipsch multimedia satellites, maybe around the size of those popular swan or whatever multimedia speakers. That is what I find most impressive. I'll take your word that they are competetive with $1k speakers. I don't remember the sound of any impressive ones off hand. For well under $400 after a bargaining session or online, I suppose it really IS a good deal. If I were stuck with a system of that size, I think they would be front runners.

 

[akwok]

Hi everyone,

I don't know if this is the right place to post this (I searched for Guarneri) -- but has anyone heard the Sonus Faber Guarneri Memento? I'm thinking of quitting Head-Fi soon, and going with speakers.. I'm stuck between the old Amati Homage and the new Guarneri Memento.

I guess it's time to go to audio shops and listen..

-Adrian