"The Bottom Line
While these speakers show an incredible amount of craftsmanship, unique designs and high tech cabinetry resulting in small speakers with really amazing output they are not for long term critical music listening. If you truly need speakers to act as transparent windows into a recorded environment that can be listened to for hours and never tire of I think you'll find these speakers too hot and seasoned for your needs unless you have matching hearing loss in which case they may actually be perfect."
The real problem here is that you are making extreme and definitive criticisms and recommendations based on a relatively brief and completely un-thorough audition in a strange environment. It's really not that unlike any of us hearing unfamiliar equipment in an unfamiliar hotel room at an audio show and proclaiming the speakers as clearly flawed. Among the myriad of other problems and inconsistencies here, how could you possibly know what you heard was in any way specifically due to the speakers??? It's absolutely impossible. The fact that you dismiss the limitations of your "review" environment is, to say the least, disconcerting.
Most of us know how flawed auditioning anything in those types of circumstances is, and, further, how irresponsible it would be to make firm or seemingly authoritative recommendations or assertions to others based on such a limited and compromised experience -- especially negative ones. If you want to do this type of thing and have any credibility whatsoever, especially among this crowd, make the effort and take the time to borrow equipment from a manufacturer, properly set it up in your own room with your equipment and make sure it's sufficiently broken in. Then spend a couple months listening to it -- comprising anywhere from 5 - 20 hours of actual critical listening time -- with a wide variety of your own music and then another 5 hours or so consolidating all that gained knowledge and writing a thoughtful, thorough, and comprehensive review. I know first hand how critical this level of time and commitment is to write anything close to a valid review of someone else's hard and maybe even life's work that might possibly be of some value to audiophiles. So for you to plop your butt down in a strange chair for a few minutes and spew out a half-ass blog and profess thatit has any credibility as a "review," -- well, let's just say I find the blog worth the effort that went into producing it and an insult to actual reviewers who spend the many, many hours of commitment it takes to produce something that holds out any chance of being even somewhat accurate and potentially useful to buyers.
And, while we're at it, stop throwing measurements out there like they're proof of anything or that they in any way validate your own individual conclusions or biases. Any seasoned audiophile knows that, while measurements are certainly important and worth looking at, they often have little to do with how things sound in a real-world environment with all the variables contained therein. You seem to hold out your version of neutrality -- whatever the hell that is -- as the Holy Grail of audio and that anything else is flawed. But then you walk it back by saying it's fine if it still sounds good to the hearing-impaired individual. That's complete condescending bullsh*t. You seem to think you've identified the end all be all of how things should sound. Good for you. Don't villify the rest of us as being hearing impaired because you've possibly found "your curve." And make no mistake, you have a biased curve just like the rest of us -- you just hold yours out as being "right" and "neutral." Here's a hint -- there IS no neutral. And a speaker that measures flat in a lab probably sounds like crap in a real listening room. But let's leave that aside. Unless you're recording your own music flawlessly with likewise flawless recording equipment and playing it back with likewise flawless equipment in a flawless room, you have no more idea what "neutral" is any more than the rest of us. So stop preaching to us that your half-ass "reviews" are in any way rigorous or accurate and that it's ok if us low-lifes think equipment you've deemed flawed might still be good enough for us because our hearing is compromised. Good luck with that strategy in selling your blog. I'm sure you'll gain a lot of traction with the more experienced people here with that BS, although I pity the poor newbies who may read your semi-informed, seat-of-the-pants crap and actually think it's worth something. Then again, you build superior speakers as you and a few of your friends see it, so that's clearly a credible basis for being able to accurately assess speakers on the fly in strange systems.
By the way, I had the opportunity to speak with Alon Wolf one on one at length about speaker design. Believe it or not he actually sounds like he knows what he's doing, but he's also a reasonable guy and I'm sure he'd be open to you explaining to him and his thousands of audiophile customers why his speakers aren't for long-term listening unless they're hearing impaired.
Best of luck with the blog.
