FAB audio 1 speakers, how good are they?

My system is posted here. It's similar in many ways to yours, with an Audio Note front end and SET amp. I've been using the Model 1 for about 4 months. They replaced my previous Coincident Total Victories, which were driven by the CA-339, coincidentally.

The Fabs are remarkable speakers. The have very high resolution, excellent dynamics, a real sense of life, and are faster than a Ferrari. As Tasos1 says, they're not laid back - they are very lively and involving, with a third-row presentation rather than mid-hall. They will let everything upstream through, and you'll hear a big difference between the Canaries and a SET amp - in comparison to the SETs I've tried with them, the big Canaries sound a bit unrefined. The speakers themselves are incisive without being bright. There is no honk, and no boxiness that I can hear. They have a very clean, clear sound that is reminiscent of electrostatics. They can let you hear right back into the original recording venues, which is what I like.

Because of their capabilities they are sensitive to room placement. When they are pulled well out from the front wall the resolution improves at the expense of the bass. Pushed back the tonality gets fuller but the resolution and imaging don't develop as much as they can. As a result I've added a pair of subs to fill out the bottom end, and have the speakers pulled out for best detail. The front face of the speaker is about 5 feet from the wall, and with the subs filling in the upper bass it's the best of both worlds.

Musicality, that's the Grail, isn't it? And how do we get there without sacrificing all the audiophile shivers and twitches? In my experience there are two roads to nirvana. One involves saying, "To hell with the audiophile stuff - I want toe-tapping involvement, and I don't care about imaging and gnat's-whisker resolution." The other involves searching out all the audiophile stuff first, then moving through it (either through planning or luck) to where the musical intent of the artists appears within all the bells and whistles. The first is certainly cheaper, the latter gives you a system that does "Holy Cow!" on a few more levels, but at a much higher price.

The Fab Model 1's are firmly in that second camp. They have enough resolution, transparency and dynamics to easily turn into a standard "audiophile" system. All you need is a well-reviewed solid-state amp, an oversampling CD player and some Valhalla wire and hey presto, you're there. On the other hand, if you treat them nicely all the music that comes down the chain will make it out into the room.

One intrinsic advantage the Fabs have is that their efficiency will prompt most buyers to mate them with SET amps. This will automatically start them off on the right foot. Put a good turntable or a musically valid CD system in front of that, and you're pretty much there.

On the question about all Audio Note systems - the only reason I haven't gone that direction is circumstance. I started building this system about three years ago, and I didn't know about Qvortrup and company back then. I did know about Coincident, so when I was looking for a statement speaker to anchor the system, I bought Israel's Total Victories. Then I was smitten by a KR integrated amp, and then I started buying a lot of stuff off the net, based on web reviews. That approach doesn't lead you into a full AN system - for that you need a dealer who can demonstrate one to you.

While my dealer does sell AN and is very conscientious about helping his clients build good systems, he never had enough high end AN gear on hand to really show me the magic. I'm not that upset though, because the system (most of which came from his shop in the end) turned out all right anyway, and my experience with PX25 amps has been more positive than with 300Bs.

I do suspect that if he'd played me a system with a 3.1x Balanced DAC, an M5, Conqueror amps and a pair of high end AN-E speakers, I'd have been a dead duck...