There were no Ardens to audition at Upscale Audio as they are out of stock. But they’ve now been eliminated due to size after I made more room dimension measurements. So I auditioned the Cheviot and Turnberry only. I must say the Cheviot is a beautiful looking speaker up close. I’m an industrial designer and I was really captivated by the quality of finish. The gold ring successfully gives the illusion of a bigger woofer and is a great detail.
It’s also very evident how the woofer is shaped to facilitate a waveguide for the tweeter. The Turnberry also looks good but the 10” woofer looks less impressive in person.
When requested at critical moments, the Cheviot’s bass is immediate and impressive enough for me to remember weeks later.
The Turnberry had slightly better overall bass presence throughout all the tracks…despite losing out on the bigger bass moments. Both had great midrange but the Turnberry edged out the Cheviots just slightly. What the Turnberry did do was capture some subtle detail in the upper midrange. It may be the Cheviot was not completely broken-in although I was assured this was the case.
I went with the Turnberry. It is a much better speaker in my room. First set of speakers I got did not some with grilles. That was very odd. Almost as odd as the fact that they were shipped upside down and were missing the ‘cabinet and grille inspection’ signature on the quality certificate.
Upscale replaced these with a new set, with grilles (and a completed certificate). I also think that the first set of speakers were used as there were some cabinet blemishes and they sounded fantastic.
The replacements sound pretty bad by comparison. It is true that these need some break in time. At 10 hours playing time, they still sound congested, closed and a little dead but now are very ‘all over the place’…sometimes polite…other times ‘shouty’. Never had speakers this reliant on break-in before.
Knowing this I sometimes wish I could have auditioned the Cheviots in room. But overall, very happy with the Turnberry.
