Neville, i truely feel bad for you. Parting with the athenas is gonna hurt
Tjandra, when i went on a speaker hunt i traveled three states and listened to vandersteens, thiel, aerial, martin logans, revel, hales B&W (801n's couldn't even get in the game though i always allow for the possiblility of a really sucky audition room) Dunlavy IIIs, and a number of others i can't recall right now. The first time i heard the athenas (in a killer room at Audio Vidio Logic in Des Moines Iowa)i said these are the ones. Two more days of travel and listening did nothing other than confirm my original conclusion. I'm so satisfied that i don't even consider replacing them. I have recently heard the Wilson Sophias..wasn't impressed at all, and the Wilson Maxes...which totally blew me away. However the max system was carrying a retail price exceeding $150 k plus the room. Mine is closer to $25k.
Set up on the long wall and paired with VTL tubes in a less than perfect room my athenas totally dissappear. the soundstage can extend beyond the speakers though it is recording dependant. There is good depth to the sound stage and a natural sence of height. within that soundstage the imagining is very defined and stable. In comparison, the wilson sophias for example, sounded like small boxes setting on the floor.
Bass is tight and accurate and capable of getting quite deep when the recording calls for it, the highs are smooth and open with an airyness approaching planers and the mids are warm and natural with no honkiness (and i'm fully aware of how nasty a honky midrange can sound...just aint there on the athenas though i have heard complaints about the IVs and even the Vs from time to time). The highs were extremely sensitive to cables and tweaking. At one point my system had a horrible top end glare with a set of Pro Silway II cables in the CDP position. that problem ended up being cured by vibration control under the CDP. I also spent a lot of time setting up the speakers, not a plug and play arangement.
I've been a part time working musician for over 25 yrs and i go to a lot of live shows. The dunlavies do a great job on lifelike presentation of most instruments and reproduction of the feal of the performance within the limitations of my room and system. the only failings over live shows may be that they are a tad more laid back than the real deal. That may be a result of my system configuration as i prefer laid back for relaxation as opposed to an in-your-face EV sound system type of sound with huge subs pounding my brains out. I'm also fueling them with 185 wts/side which will barely power a monitor for a live system.
With small group Jazz acoustic, roots rock/folk or blues recordings and my amps in triod mode the reproduction of the instruments is extremely accurate. get into rock recordings of lesser quality things can take a harsh turn but that doesn't happen much.
in summary tjandra, for what you'll get out of your alethas if you sell them you will never touch a small fraction of what you have. They were about impossible to beat at full retail.
system:
VTL MB 185 monos on polychrystal stands
VTL 5.5 preamp
ACR CD-2
CJ Walker table with a Linn Basik arm
old B&o reciever for tuner and phono pre (even with this low budget approach to analog the old records still sound great)
Harmonic tech Pro Silway II between pre and CDP, truthlinks between amp and pre and between the B&O and pre
BMI eels on the pre and CDP, stock power cords on every thing else
Tjandra, when i went on a speaker hunt i traveled three states and listened to vandersteens, thiel, aerial, martin logans, revel, hales B&W (801n's couldn't even get in the game though i always allow for the possiblility of a really sucky audition room) Dunlavy IIIs, and a number of others i can't recall right now. The first time i heard the athenas (in a killer room at Audio Vidio Logic in Des Moines Iowa)i said these are the ones. Two more days of travel and listening did nothing other than confirm my original conclusion. I'm so satisfied that i don't even consider replacing them. I have recently heard the Wilson Sophias..wasn't impressed at all, and the Wilson Maxes...which totally blew me away. However the max system was carrying a retail price exceeding $150 k plus the room. Mine is closer to $25k.
Set up on the long wall and paired with VTL tubes in a less than perfect room my athenas totally dissappear. the soundstage can extend beyond the speakers though it is recording dependant. There is good depth to the sound stage and a natural sence of height. within that soundstage the imagining is very defined and stable. In comparison, the wilson sophias for example, sounded like small boxes setting on the floor.
Bass is tight and accurate and capable of getting quite deep when the recording calls for it, the highs are smooth and open with an airyness approaching planers and the mids are warm and natural with no honkiness (and i'm fully aware of how nasty a honky midrange can sound...just aint there on the athenas though i have heard complaints about the IVs and even the Vs from time to time). The highs were extremely sensitive to cables and tweaking. At one point my system had a horrible top end glare with a set of Pro Silway II cables in the CDP position. that problem ended up being cured by vibration control under the CDP. I also spent a lot of time setting up the speakers, not a plug and play arangement.
I've been a part time working musician for over 25 yrs and i go to a lot of live shows. The dunlavies do a great job on lifelike presentation of most instruments and reproduction of the feal of the performance within the limitations of my room and system. the only failings over live shows may be that they are a tad more laid back than the real deal. That may be a result of my system configuration as i prefer laid back for relaxation as opposed to an in-your-face EV sound system type of sound with huge subs pounding my brains out. I'm also fueling them with 185 wts/side which will barely power a monitor for a live system.
With small group Jazz acoustic, roots rock/folk or blues recordings and my amps in triod mode the reproduction of the instruments is extremely accurate. get into rock recordings of lesser quality things can take a harsh turn but that doesn't happen much.
in summary tjandra, for what you'll get out of your alethas if you sell them you will never touch a small fraction of what you have. They were about impossible to beat at full retail.
system:
VTL MB 185 monos on polychrystal stands
VTL 5.5 preamp
ACR CD-2
CJ Walker table with a Linn Basik arm
old B&o reciever for tuner and phono pre (even with this low budget approach to analog the old records still sound great)
Harmonic tech Pro Silway II between pre and CDP, truthlinks between amp and pre and between the B&O and pre
BMI eels on the pre and CDP, stock power cords on every thing else