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Stereophile review of Escalante Fremont

Has anyone read Stereophile review (Feb '08) of Escalante Design Fremont spkrs ?
Reviewed by Larry Greenhill & measured by Jon Atkinson .

How come they make a review of the spkrs without proper setup :
- LG didn't attached the stand spikes because of his new wood floor & put some bad comments (nasal / coloured tonal).
- JA measured the spkrs with above condition .
- No information if the spkrs burned-in

In my experience , result could be very sensitive for full range spkrs setup ( freq. resp : 18 hz - 50 khz ) .

How can such a great magazine editor allow to publish review with above condition ?

Really different with Positive-Feedback (by Greg Weaver) & Stereo Times (by Dave Thomas & Greg Petan) reviews .
This three reviewers has bought Fremont after made the review .

Seems our international respectable Stereophile magazine has a lot of degradation in their quality .
Is there politics inside this magazine ?
What a waste review ... i think ...
riwin_h
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hhiggins
66 posts
 
Speakers are using the woofers dust cap for a mid range & upper bass from internal vented isobaric woofer, I would expect the upper bass & mids to suffer...same designer as Talon's. Weird thing was everyone was ethusiasitic about the bass, yet it measured so-so at the low end. USPTO has patent viewable on line. After viewing patent info was suprised to see in review that the internal & external woofers didn't cover the exact same freq. range
rives
953 posts
 
Not the same designer as current Talon Reference series. He did work with Talon for the early speaker designs, all of which are no longer in production.
dgarretson
2,588 posts
 
I heard the Fremonts at HE2007 in Sound by Singer's top system & thought they had a somewhat pale, old-fashioned reflex-sounding bass. However the large room full of people was not good conditions for a fair audition.

In the Feb issue of Stereophile it was refreshing for once to see reviewers omit the usual superlatives & take several extremely high-priced products to task for small imperfections.
undertow
1,033 posts
 
Thought all those guys worked for wilson at some point as well?
riwin_h OP
8 posts
 
What make me dissapointed is why a big magazine not to have proper setup before published a review .
The review become not so accurate .
A good or bad comments should be acceptable if they did proper setup as factory's recommends already .

IMHO , I don't detect any nasal problem with proper setup on Fremont. I used Audiopoints between stands and spkrs .
Few milimeter positioning could be a big difference (could be soundstage collapse or big hole on center ) .
The most interesting for me is its PRAT , musicality and organic tonal feel .
Few weeks ago two of audiophiles friends who is a bassist & a drummer give comments if really has live feeling & has life alike tonal character .
Not hifi-ish terms , just pure music .

Undertow :
Could you let me know what spkrs that you are using ?
It could be very interesting for me as well for future upgrade .
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