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Gallo Ref III Amps/impressions

I currently own Maggie 1.6qr's and have been in the market to move up to 3.6r's. In anticipation of that I bought an Innersound ESL MKIII, new from Innersound (last of these). I love the amp, and it has MASSIVE power. I had planned to match with the bigger Maggies, but after reading many reviews I am contemplating a move to the Gallo Ref III.

Part of the reason, is that I just sold my Sunfire True Signature sub, and was going to buy a Velodyne DD-12 (faster, easier to set up), and read that the Gallo would work very well without a sub. Anyway 2 questions:

1) Has anyone heard the Gallo Ref III with the mystery SA Amp attached? Can you go sans sub in that configuration?

2) What about using my Innersound ESL amp with these? The amp is 300w @ 8ohm, 600 @ 4ohm. The guys at Gallo (very helpful), suggested that I keep the Innersound. He said that the Ref III would love the power, and it would, as it does with Maggies, ML's, SoundLabs, extend the bass a ton. What do you think??
macdadtexas
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pretender
28 posts
 
I have had the Gallos for several months; and coincidentally, I just recently hooked up an older Parasound amp to the second voice coils. I am by no means an expert; but I feel that this set up is far and away better than using a sub(s). I only wish I had tried it sooner! In a previous system, I had a pair of ACI subs, and I could never get them to integrate seamlessly. The bass on the Gallos is smooth, quick and deep...

My main amp is a Rogue Tempest II.
gaudio_eek
312 posts
 
The answers to your questions are:

1. Yes
2. Yes

Mark Hampton of ZCable also has these. At least, this is what I was told when I visited the ZCable room at T.H.E.05.
The sound of the Gallo III's is nice but you should hear the sound that Mark Hampton was able to coax out of these speakers. I almost had to pick my jaw from the floor, especially considering the fact that the other components in the chain were not-so-special Sony.
Mark was demonstrating his own process of re-recording music. He played some a capella choral music and the layering of the soundstage is breathtaking. Lots of air, enabling the separation of each individual voice to mesh within a large body of sound. Overall, transparency, resolution and enhanced micro-dynamics were the hallmark.

I'm sure the Bright Star Audio Gallo Stands and the felt strips also helped. Mark Hampton is currently still refining this re-recording process so this is all I can mention. The 6th generation CD-R copy sounds better than the original if you can believe it! The difference was night-and-day. How did I find this out? I was referred by Empirical Audio to check out the ZCable room for a demo.

I have no relations to ZCable, Bright Star Audio or Empirical Audio.

owl's avatar
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owl
139 posts
 
Gaudio I second your opinion of that room, astounding and high value, if not, absurdly because of the system cost and components, some of the best sound of the show. I spent far more time there than in the Maxx2/Arc room right next door and was absolutely floored by the sound. Interesting that they spent more money on vibration isolation (Magix)than they did on the system itself! Of note, the BPT Balanced power tech power treatment was everywhere in that room, and perhaps a major contributor to the result... In fact, I think they had a BPT on EVERY component!
macdadtexas OP
1,794 posts
 
Pretender, how are you setting up the crossover and high/low pass with the Parasound to the second coil? Also, did you just split the LFE output into left and right to do it? What about speaker cables? Can I use less expensive cables, or do I need to pony up for another set of similar cables?

Thanks for your help. I am definitely going to go this way.
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