D-MAN Posted March 13, 2006 Share Posted March 13, 2006 Went to the big Magnolia store (man it was big!) in the University district here in Seattle and checked out the current HT and 2 channel scene... Happily, lots of McIntosh gear, all of which was above $3K. Two of which really pushed my buttons - a new 275 ($3.2K) and the Mc2000 (100 w per @ +$6K) both tube power amps. All speakers present in every sound room was tall (nothing over 3 feet, though) and skinny crap along with smaller Logan-Martins (or Mogen-Davids, as I like to refer to them). But REAL small, none of which was KEF model 4 size. No horns anywhere. I was suprized that they were almost exclusively showing REAL small speakers, none of which were actually capable of ROCKING in any sense. Largest sub I saw was a 12" REL. I really HAVE to say that the speakers I saw and heard were PATHETIC even in the HT rooms! Utterly PATHETIC, anemic little small-footprint towers. There really wasn't much of a choice available, they were all VERY much alike although different brands. All of which are horribly limp little pathetic things. Demo music was the traditional lone girl with guitar stuff. Cool touch-screen computer-driven source/amp/speaker switching which I hadn't seen before, made A/Bing amps a breeze. Got a laugh at the Sonus-Faber center channel speaker at over $4K. I did like the "boat-building" technology woodwork on them, though - it really looked cool - almost beyond furniture-quality, it was in its own league BUILD-WISE. Not sound-wise and certainly not money-wise. The center was horribly ugly and stained black, not painted. The floor standers were blond. THe Sonus-Faber "boat-tail" floor standers were the most expensive thing there at +$8K for the pair. Other than the build quality, they were certainly nothing to write home about. We tried out some amps, the "Premaire" (sp) which I never heard of before was a brand that suprizingly performed CLOSE (say 90-95%) to McIntosh at less than 1/2 the price. But that last 5 or 10%... stay away from the "Integra" amps - they suck. BTW, the Khorn demo I heard at the Klipsch dealer awhile back was with Integra gear. But I digress... Not a horn in the place, actually not a good speaker in the place, as far as I could tell. Horrifying from an audiphile point of view. This was perhaps, the intermediate level just above what you could buy from WalMart. Horrible. It was a scary glimpse into the future of lower-to-mid-level consumer audio. Lot's of fine Mc gear saved the visit, thank goodness, but that seems more low-end of the high-end to me. All in all, a major WASTE of some good gear, clearly out-of-place with the speaker offerings. DM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Lindsey Posted March 13, 2006 Share Posted March 13, 2006 Don't beat around the bush... tell us how you really feel! LOL [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-MAN Posted March 13, 2006 Author Share Posted March 13, 2006 Here's one that I heard, but they sounded lame. I was suprized by the lack of midrange clarity, with the exception of the Martin-Logans, which were the best sounding speaker there... as long as you don't need or want anything approaching what one would normally call "dynamics"... These Monitor Audio's had a very nice build-quality and a color that I certainly like, but they would only be good for computer speakers IMO. They were approx. 6x10" footprint size. DM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-MAN Posted March 13, 2006 Author Share Posted March 13, 2006 Here's the Primare (spelled correctly this time) amp. Really, if you're in the market for amplification, these are not a bad choice for the money ($1.3K)I've never seen them before, but they are right up there in sound quality... The A/B test against a +3K Mc integrated was closer than you would think. The Mc still had the edge, but its not as big of a difference that you would expect for twice the money! As a Mc owner, I could live with the Primare, it would not be hard at the price. The main difference was in the midrange "smoothness". The Mc had a slight edge there. THAT WAS THE ONLY DIFFERENCE that I could tell. It was pretty subtle, but noticable in an A/B situation. DM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen Traveler Posted March 13, 2006 Share Posted March 13, 2006 In the DFW area the Magnolia stores are in Bestbuy and are relatively small. I have been on several occasions but soundwise nothing really was going on. Those 1080p monitors are a different story [] The last time I was in, the sales person was going through 3 different systems (in the one sound room) for another customer and I have to admit I was intrigued by the Vienna Acoustic speakers. They looked nice and I liked the sound of that "Lone woman and the guitar" (that IS what they were playing []) compared to the other 2 setups. I was thinking about taking in my own music to audition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-MAN Posted March 13, 2006 Author Share Posted March 13, 2006 Beware of the speakers when they are demoed with the "lone girl with a guitar"! That is THE Kiss of Death for me! Yeah, they sound good, as long as you don't play anything else on them - EVER.[] DM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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