Interesting thread.. I have owned the System 2 Signatures for about 15 years. When he came out with them,the system 2 Signatures were the ones that put Paul Hales on the map.
Harry Pearson gave them a mini rave and Robert Harley used them as his reference for many years.
I drive them with a Rowland model 8 and they truly sing; tremendous ability to portray depth, very smooth and incredible mid-bass definition and pin-point imaging are their strengths. Weakness in the reproduction of high frequencies but only in comparison to today's best tweets; also lacking in the bass department. However, I recently listened to a pair of B&W 802 diamonds, which were more extended in the high freq's but did not really blow away my Hales and in imageing and depth were lagging IMHO.
The Hales replaced electrostatics in my system and I think even today they are pretty competetive with speakers up to $8K.
Harry Pearson gave them a mini rave and Robert Harley used them as his reference for many years.
I drive them with a Rowland model 8 and they truly sing; tremendous ability to portray depth, very smooth and incredible mid-bass definition and pin-point imaging are their strengths. Weakness in the reproduction of high frequencies but only in comparison to today's best tweets; also lacking in the bass department. However, I recently listened to a pair of B&W 802 diamonds, which were more extended in the high freq's but did not really blow away my Hales and in imageing and depth were lagging IMHO.
The Hales replaced electrostatics in my system and I think even today they are pretty competetive with speakers up to $8K.