Posted by Mike Currie on September 30, 2005 at 05:56:36:
My formerly damaged A-1 panel arrived yesterday, somewhat later than planned (delayed by Hurricane Rita). A few initial observations:
1) I'm definitely going to have to experiment with placement. At present, they are about 5 feet out from the front wall, 9 feet apart (center to center), and 10 feet from the listening position. Since they are placed on the long wall of a 31 foot room, side walls are so far away as to be inconsequential. Overall bass level is just a bit overwhelming. I'm not sure yet if this is room mode or lack of control by my amp (Rogue Zeus). I don't yet have my Rives PARC hooked up, so I'm sort of hoping that it's the former. I can say that the Zeus is driving them well in terms of volume.
2) My concerns about the ability of the A-1s to handle the sort of sound levels that I find 'natural' were unfounded, at least with the program material I have used thus far. Even in the amp's triode mode and producing "only" 140 wpc, there seems to be power aplenty.
3) The resolution of the speakers is incredible. I'm sure that I'm preaching to the choir here.
4) Imaging is not quite as 'pinpoint' as it was with the Eros, but then again, no speaker I've ever heard is that speaker's equal. I should note here that there is nothing behind the panels but bare wall, with a partial slope up to a cathedral ceiling.
5) There seems to be a distinct difference in the bias required to balance out the volumes between the left and right speakers. I'm assuming that this is at least partially because the new panel was not fully charged. I had to turn the music off roughly 4 1/2 hours after first plugging in, otherwise I would be a walking (driving?) zombie this morning. This is not an acceptable condition in which to drive in Houston traffic.
Overall, I'm VERY happy with the A-1s, and fully realize that a good bit of fine tuning will be necessary. I have one general question. The speakers are sitting on their supplied rounded knobs (do these things have a name?). I would suspect that they would do better on spikes. Is this the general consensus, and if so, does anyone know what threads to specify?
Finally, I want to thank the folks at SoundLab, who fixed this thing for me at no charge even though the damage was caused by the seller's shipper. When I was on the phone with Brett and arranging to have the panel sent back to me, I asked about charges for the repair. He said "Roger really just wants you to have a functioning pair of speakers and to be happy with them. No charge." This is the kind of customer service that you hope for and all too frequently do not get. Thank you very much, Roger West and company.