New Gallo 3.5's

If you get close to the speaker when it is playing even moderately loudly and place a stethoscope on the surface, you will hear much more noise (mostly in the bass and mid-bass) coming from it than from the cabinet of any really first rate speaker (B&W, KEF, Revel, etc). This issue is a major design target for most high and even not so high end speakers - an acoustically non-resonant cabinet. Given that this has a metal structure, the resonance is not bad and pretty well controlled, but compared to a top wooden MFB it is really not so great. I notice that the sound seems cleaner, but of course this could be just auto-suggestion. Double blind testing would confirm whether it is an issue, but I am happy with the now totally inert surfaces that I have on my 3.1s.

best, Doug

Depends on the design philosophy too, and whether it "works." One
of the best sounding speakers I ever heard were the Shun Mooks whose wooden
enclosures resonate like crazy, intentionally, like violins.

In any event, the absence of boxy sound was the reason I went for Gallos in the
first place. I've never heard conventional (i.e., wood enclosed) speakers -
EXCEPT the Shun Mooks -- that didn't sound "boxy" after listening
to the super-clean Gallos. To each his own, YMMV and all that :-)

Note to self: Never listen to your Gallo's with a stethoscope. Done and done!

Let's put aside the unappreciated sarcasm about listening to Gallos with a stethoscope.

Since I don't have an accelerometer (what Stereophile uses to evaluate cabinet resonance issues), I had to make due, and I can tell you that if you listen to the Gallos 'frame" cabinet and compare it to a really inert B&W or recent KEF design at the same volume level, the difference is pretty striking. I think that "Spiritualized" is really missing the point - despite the 3.1 being a brilliant speaker and design, it isn't perfect and has one flaw - that flaw relates in part to one of the brilliant aspects of the design, namely the ability to have virtually no cabinet that creates diffraction effects that muddy the sound. That design approach requires a metal structure to support the D'Appolito array, and metal resonates (hello!). Even though Gallo I'm sure has tried to minimize that.

The issues is whether those effects reach any kind of audibility or not. The 'floor' for that varies depending on material and loudness, but most people feel that anything more than 30 db below say an 80 db foreground event is largely inaudible. Certainly anything 40 db below that is inaudible. Audibility is lessened if the material is an harmonic of the foreground sound. Of course, all this works in the favor of any speaker designer, and suggests that most of the time cabinet resonant effects are simply inaudible.

I did today a single blinded trial (comparing the two channels playing the same signal while I didn't know which speaker was playing - the stock one or the one with the applied anti-vibration treatment. Although I couldn't tell any difference between the two at lower volumes at really high volumes I could pick out the speaker with the treatment about 75% of the time, as the one sounding very slightly clearer. I didn't know which was which as someone else was doing the switching and was under strict instructions not to provide me with any cues. Some material didn't provide a basis for distinguishing the two speakers, but material with large amounts of bass however did. When I did my testing of the frame resonances, it is mostly in the bass that there is anything being produced.

I am still not totally convinced (75% over 12 trials is greater than chance but not that much greater), but I am happy with the results and they are easily reversible as the vibration dampening material peals off easily.

There is some science to this, but I don't have the equipment or the time frankly to due the testing. Hope this clarifies the issue for those who are totally skeptical. If you think this is just a crock, take a stethoscope, put on something at say 90 db or so, and start listen to how loud different cabinets are across speakers. You will be amazed at the differences, not just in terms of loudness, but in terms of frequencies.

Since I rarely listen "at really high volumes" I guess I have MY answer. Also, I've found that bass performance of the Ref 3s can be improved by judicious placement of Room Tunes, by optimizing the position of the speakers (it takes a lot of time to find the best place) and by raising the speakers 6" or so (I use the stands from Stein Audio and was one of two people who came up with these stands in the first place). I also use the Gallo Subwoofer amp. Dave