Do you know of small speakers that sound ''BIG'' ?

Jtgofish:
The Intuitive Design website is certainly short on details. Dale doesn't do a "spiel" at all; in fact, his taciturn nature is something I've found rather frustrating. I did NOT purchase these speakers based on reviewing his website, believe me. I listened to them, TWICE, and they sounded even better in my system than they did at the store.

If anything, Dale has tended toward being very highly critical of any potential flaw, and pointing it out, as I mentioned in my review of that loudspeaker:

"The midbass punch is just as excellent as that of the Paradigms, and just a tad richer without being soft or fuzzy. I had had concerns about a two way system going so low, but the midrange doesn’t suffer at all. Dale Pitcher had mentioned some potential “Doppler issues”, potentially introducing distortion when the 7” carbon pulp driver has greater excursion at higher volumes. I have simply NOT been able to hear this, ever. I think that they are actually “Doppler NON-issues.”"

Please read my Audiogon review of the Intuitive Design Summit Loudspeakers if you want to get an excruciatingly detailed account of just how great these things sound. I don't expect anyone to believe my review, but hopefully it might cause some people to listen to these speakers for themselves.

As for product literature, be it printed brochures or website material, I am extremely skeptical. This is because of an experience that I had years ago, looking at a great sounding product brochure about a line of speakers and some electronics. The brochure was gorgeous and, as I recall, it had graphs, and things that looked like scientific measurements, lots of very scientific-sounding explanations of the design and the unique radiation pattern, yada yada yada. I figured the flagship would sound phenomenal, and went to the company HQ to listen. Holy mackerel, what an overpriced, gosh-awful stinker! (In my opinion only, maybe you'd love them...).
Now THAT company had made up a spiel!

I am and will remain a firm proponent of people ACTUALLY LISTENING FOR THEMSELVES before buying loudspeakers. That's what I did for the Summits, and THEN pulled the trigger. I agree that Dale's website may not be the most glamorous, but I would strongly encourage you and anyone else to at least LISTEN to these prior to dropping a big wad of cash on some other "mainstream" speaker. As I said in the poem:

"for then you should find my words to be true
but ‘til you listen, you won’t have a clue"

"Take any line of speakers and move from the monitors to the floorstanders. Huge difference. One monitor in any given line might sound better than a floorstander in another line. I think that is often confused with considering the smaller speaker to sound 'bigger.'"
Douglas_schroeder"

Good point. I feel that the "monitors" I now own from Intuitive Design sound better than the floorstanders I used to own from a different line. This is not to say that the floorstanders were bad, just that these monitors are phenomenal. The next step up in the Intuitive Design line is 38,000 dollars, then 65,000 dollars, so they're not a consideration for me.

"Small speakers should not sound big.Trying to make them sound big gives them a fake sounding bass which detracts from their potential for purity of sound.[More excursion equals worse midrange]You are best off with a small speaker that only goes to about 60 hz and then using a subwoofer."
-JT

Good point, and probably true for most two-way designs. However, I can't detect this problem with the Intuitive Design Summits that I own, and I pointed that out in my review of that speaker. Maybe it would be an issue if they were cranked to ridiculously loud volumes. I haven't been able to hear it, though. I can only assume that they might sound even BETTER than they already do if they had an AGILE crossover set at or above 60 hertz, and ALSO were mated with subwoofers sufficiently fast and up to the task. As for now, no problems, even with hypervigilant listening.

Jtgofish:
The answer to your first question is "no."

As for speed, these things are LIGHTNING fast. When I said they have the most incredible combination of high end detail and smoothness (both) that I'd ever heard in ANY loudspeaker irrespective of price, bar none, that's EXACTLY what I meant.

These are phenomenally, incredibly smooth but they are absolutely, positively, unequivocally, NOT smeared. No, no, no, no.....NO! Quite the opposite (I'm not angry, just trying to hammer home a point here...). I UNDERSTAND that those two things almost NEVER go together, but I swear to you, with this speaker they do. To give you an idea, I thought that these made my Sennheiser HD600's sound....kinda BAD! (To be fair, that was with a Ramsey SHA-1 headphone amp, which is certainly a great value and has gobs of power, but probably falls, um....short...of being hi fi, at least by Audiogon member standards). I ended up getting Stax Lambda Pro Signature Pro Earspeakers with an SRM T1 headphone amplifier/"energizer," and even that set-up doesn't sound as good (to me) as the Summits. The Stax Lambda Signatures MAY have SLIGHTLY more detail, but I'm not even sure about that.

Dale Pitcher is on the cutting edge of the cutting edge, period, AND he's cutting in the RIGHT DIRECTION. In my opinion, he's an under-recognized genius, with a great ear and the practical application skills to match his theoretical brilliance. He doesn't really advertise or toot his own horn, yet has never had to declare bankruptcy in 25 years. He SOLD Essence prior to starting Intuitive Design.

If phenomenal, lightning fast, detailed, smooth, accurate, phase coherent, dynamic speakers are what you're looking for, then you really owe it to yourself to listen to these. These are his "entry level" speaker, with the next models up selling for ~$38,000 (Pingoras), then ~65,000 (most recent version of Denalis).

"I have not heard the Summits yet, but I did own a pair of Essence Super Gems for about 12 years. They were an unbelievable speaker in 1990 and I have heard from many that the Summits are many times better."
-Eandj2000

So....WHY THE HECK AREN'T SOME OF THESE "many" PEOPLE POSTING to the forums?????? I feel so, so, so.........ALONE!