@sdl4 I am very curious to hear the Aspens. Based on very little experience, but nonetheless, I am not sure that I am a fan of ribbon tweeters. It might be their limited vertical dispersion compared to more natural dome tweeter. But planers are a different animal. How would you describe their off axis characteristics? If you are not in the sweet spot, how natural does your system sound?
Considering Vandersteen Treo
My profile is out of date, but my current speakers are QLN 3's, which I very much enjoy. The soundstage is wonderful, and they play nice in my smallish room at 12.5x11. However, they seem to lack some fullness, and not just in the bass category, I can't quite put my finger on what is missing.
To date I have demo'ed Spendor D series, Wilson Sabrina, Audiovector R3 Arrete, Sonus Faber Olympica Nova II and the Vandersteen Treo. Each of them had their merits, but the Treo was the standout among these choices.
Along with good sound, my requirements, and concerns, surround:
- How well they play in smaller rooms without overpowering the room.
- How well they play at lower listening levels, 65-75 dB. I am not a believer that this is entirely a function of speaker sensitivity. Some speakers 'wake up' at certain levels, and can be quite dull at low volume.
- Soundstage, and the ability to disappear. I like a broad soundstage and phase aligned speakers. All of the speakers did pretty well in this category, but the Treo's were better, presumable due to their phase aligned design.
- One concern and actually an annoyance with the Treo's is the speaker connections. I have significant investment in time and money finding speaker cables and I would not be able to use them on the antiquated screw terminal connections forced on owners of these speakers. Anyway...
Just tossing this out there to solicit opinions from those who have heard or own Treo's or QLN's. Let me know your thoughts.
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@zlone Good questions about the off-axis performance of the Aspen speakers. The horizontal dispersion of the Aspen tweeters and midranges is excellent, producing a very wide soundstage. The vertical dispersion is not as wide, but it's still quite manageable. You just have to be sure that the listening position has the tweeter height at approximately ear level. This is easy to do by either slightly raising the height of the speakers or raising/lowering the seating position for a listener. These speakers also respond well to toe-in or lack of it, depending on your preferences. If you prefer a direct on-axis response, you can toe-in the speakers significantly. The speakers can also be positioned without any toe-in, which widens the soundstage as long as the room width allows it. I have my FR10s toed-in just slightly, with the left and right speakers roughly 4-5 feet away from the side walls. One other issue I should mention is transient response. I haven't heard any dome tweeters that sound as fast and effortless as the Aspen planar tweeters. Reportedly, these planars are even lighter than the air they have to move. |
@sdl4 Thanks for the listening notes! |
@sdl4 Sorry, forgot to respond to this, thanks for the notes. I remain intrigued by these speakers. |
- 63 posts total