I live near Roy in central Colorado and had the pleasure of auditioning the Europas at the factory...a less than impressive place...if anything other than sound production and Roy's enthusiasm counts. Roy's shop has the feel of a mad scientists laboratory with Roy being the maestro of musical mysticism. I had planned to audition the new C-3's but none were finished, so I spent about 3 hours listening to a wide variety of music that Roy selected to demonstrate the Europas. I had brought some of my own (featuring female voices like Diana Krall and old jazzy Joni Mitchell) some old King Crimson, Sprit, Led Zep; a classical piece or two...none of what I brought challenged the Europas at all. Roy kept telling me that one of the finer attributes of the Europas was their ability to make bad recordings or pressings, or CD's ...sound great...and proceeded to demonstrate how true this was...
All the while offering explanations about first order crossovers that quite frankly left me befuddled...but I'm not nearly as interested in them as Roy is...I just want to listen...my ears make me a believer. And believe...I did.
Roy played some of the most obscure recordings, many by artists I'd never heard of...and in spite of some obvious recording flaws...the europas made everything highly listenable...which explains my staying there 3 hours.
I kept thinking, these sound better that XXX, or YYY, or ZZZ, but they lack something....but could never pin it down. And considering the speakers I was comparing these little $880.00 / pr marvels to, cost 3-4 times as much, I can say that this is one of the better audio buys around at this time. (One of the sets I own already, retail <$3,000.00 per pair and I will be hard pressed to encourage someone to buy them now...even though I'll take a huge loss if I can't)
I had planned to purchase the C-3's at tax return time 2004...but since my first ex-wife twisted the knife of past due child support (her and her attorney's contention) I'll have to wait till next yeat....but that's OK...I'll be happy with the Europas until then...just asked Roy to put a pair of Europas together for me...Undoubtedly one of my more rational hi-fi purchases this decade.
Buy a pair...and listen like Thieves.
All the while offering explanations about first order crossovers that quite frankly left me befuddled...but I'm not nearly as interested in them as Roy is...I just want to listen...my ears make me a believer. And believe...I did.
Roy played some of the most obscure recordings, many by artists I'd never heard of...and in spite of some obvious recording flaws...the europas made everything highly listenable...which explains my staying there 3 hours.
I kept thinking, these sound better that XXX, or YYY, or ZZZ, but they lack something....but could never pin it down. And considering the speakers I was comparing these little $880.00 / pr marvels to, cost 3-4 times as much, I can say that this is one of the better audio buys around at this time. (One of the sets I own already, retail <$3,000.00 per pair and I will be hard pressed to encourage someone to buy them now...even though I'll take a huge loss if I can't)
I had planned to purchase the C-3's at tax return time 2004...but since my first ex-wife twisted the knife of past due child support (her and her attorney's contention) I'll have to wait till next yeat....but that's OK...I'll be happy with the Europas until then...just asked Roy to put a pair of Europas together for me...Undoubtedly one of my more rational hi-fi purchases this decade.
Buy a pair...and listen like Thieves.