I find the SEAS drivers interesting. I’m wary of presuming that drivers will have a particular "sound" in of themselves. And yet I find that one of my favourite speaker brands of old - Hales, which use the similar SEAS drivers to the JA speakers - seem to share a real DNA in their sound. I owned the Hales Transcendence 5 speakers at one point, and still own the Hales Transcendence 1 monitors (and a Hales center channel) using those same SEAS drivers and I’ll never forget first hearing the Hales transcendence speakers in a store. Metal drivers back then (mid to late 90’s) had a rep for sounding a bit hard and metallic (deservedly or not).But the Hales speakers sounded super smooth, rich, organic and with an eerie timbral believability that just grabbed me. I’d rarely heard a speaker that could produce such a believably wide array of timbral signatures. And a notable quality of the sound was a pristine smoothness and lack of etch or hash.
My only quibble that arose over time with the Hales is that they could be a bit dynamically reticent and that smoothness/clarity lack of hash could sometimes seem a bit too smooth. There was just a bit of glaze over the sound, so for instance there wasn’t quite the in-the-room texture of a bow on a violin or cello string.
The only other speakers I’ve heard that sound like the Hales are the JA speakers. They have that super smoothness combined with richness and clarity, and a signature "lack of grain/etch" sound. And if I have any quibble with the JAs, it’s that like the Hales they can sometimes have just a bit less texture than some other speakers. Though it’s not to as great degree as the Hales speakers.
But the Hales and JA speakers share such a special signature, and given their mid/woofer drivers are both SEAS and look so similar, it’s hard not to intuitively attribute something to the character of the SEAS drivers.A special blend of grain-free clarity and warmth.
