Worst speakers at Stereophile show


Here's what I thought were the worst sounding speakers at the Stereophile show. The Eggleston speakers that list for 100,000 dollars. I heard them in the Nagra room, with the Nagra 845 tube Amps, Nagra Preamp and Nagra digital reel to reel player. The cabinet on the Egglestons looked gorgeous. But let me tell you, these speakers were horrible. I was shocked how bad they sounded. They were so bright sounding. Eggleston has got to change midrange drivers. Those Morel midbases just sound to bright. Egglestons should use the Dynaudio 3 inch dome mids. Krell came out with a new mini monitor. It cost like 6000 dollars. These Krell Speakers sounded so edgy and the sound could get out of control. I didn't like them. Silverline had the Silverline Sonata speakers there. These speakers had to have the worst crossover. I played a track with a nice beat to it. It sounded horrible on these speakers. Then I put my ear to the speakers and I couldn't believe it, 80 percent of the midrange and bass was coming out of the tweeter. Silverline has got to change the crossover. How could you have the midbase coming out of the tweeter. That's why the bass sounded so edgy. A tweeter cant handle bass. Now another speaker I heard, that I didn't like. I heard the Merlin VSM se speakers. Merlin had 2 rooms with the VSM se speakers. One room had the Joule Electra Tube amps and Preamp. The other room that had the Merlins VSM se was the Sim Audio room. The Merlins in the Joule Electra room sounded not bad. It had nice detail. The same Merlins VSM se in the Sim Audio room sounded so average. The Joule Electra Tube Amps, sounded so much better on the Merlin speakers, then the Sim Room, which was using Sim W5 Amp, Sim P 5 preamp and Sim CD Player on the Merlin VSM se. The Merlins in the Joule Electra Room sounded very detailed, but didn't have that bass impact and large sound that I like. Then I heard the Verity Parsifal speakers on these Tenor OTL Tube Amps and the Audio Aero Capitole 24 bit CD Player. The Veritys didn't sound good. Someone said it perfectly to me, the Verity's dont have a full body sound. I then heard the Meadowlark speakers. I think they were the Herons. The bass did not sound good. It sounded way out of control and to boomy. I was also dissapointed with the Totem designer. Vince is a nice guy. But he kept playing these Totem tower speakers. They used a 5 inch midbase and the tweeter. They didn't sound to good. Then there was these nice looking Totem speakers in the room. They were called the Totem Wind. There's a pic of them on Totemes website. www.totemacoustic.com They used a 8 inch woofer and 2 dynaudio 3 inch dome midbases and a tweeter at the top. Vince played these speakers for like 40 seconds and they sounded really good. The bass and the midrange sounded nice. I wanted to hear more of them. Then Vince stopped playing them and went back to the Totem speakers, with the 5 inch midbase and the Tweeter. Everyone in the Room wanted to hear the other Totem speakers. But he wouldn't play them. He said he would play them later. Every time I went in the Totem room, he was playing the speaker with the 5 inch midbase and the tweeter. The 3rd time I was in the Totem room, another guy wanted to hear the Totem Wind speakers, but Vince said the same thing, he'll play them later.
doug99
I also liked the Dali speakers, but they were part of a system that was demonstrating the TacT room correcction system and TacT's "digital" amplifier, so it's not apples and apples.
Most of the expensive speakers are decent products. The problems(bad sounding) are probably caused by the people who set up the systems. Most likely they are ex-used car saleman rather than a ture audiophile.
I was in the Eggleston/Nagra room and was very unimpressed by what I heard. I couldn't help thinking the speakers were starved for power. There was very little bass extension and frankly no sense of "being there". I'd be curious how they would sound with a much bigger tube amp. Anyone else notice this?
Doug99
You are losing credibility real fast. The Merlin's are not VSM's. They're the Milleniums. What do you use?