Gallo reference /TAS vs Me

I just spoke to John at Gallo and the sub amp is not yet avaliable. They expect to get the latest prototype in the next couple of days. It seems that they decided to make a couple of changes at the last minute and this has slightly delayed release of the amp. John assured me that the 240 wpc amp running just the 2nd voice coil of the woofer makes for some VERY impressive bass. This with a good tube amp running the rest of the speaker should make this speaker sound fantastic. If anyone is able to get one soon, please be sure to post your impressions. It is also suggested that if you run the eq on the amp at +6, it will help to break the woofer in faster. If you are listening to music you might want to back that down as the bass will be too overpowering and not intigrate well (the +6 position is only for break in purposes).

Anyone of you guys bought the Ref IIIs to replace any Paradigm speakers? I currently have the Paradigm Active 40 and Active CC and am wondering if this setup would be an upgrade to what I have. Any comments will be appreciated.

Thanks

Also had another question... .these spearks are available with black or stainless accents and black/cherry/maple bases. I have only seen pictures of the stainless accent with the maple bottom. Has anyone seen or have pictures of the black accents and the maple bottom?

Someone mentioned that a dealer once hooked up the Gallo Ref 3's incorrectly. The dealer did not notice that the binding posts have SINGLE wire hookups, NOT bi-wire, even though they look like bi-wire pairs of binding posts.

The top pair is the only pair you use from your main amplifier. The bottom pair is for the dedicated, sub amp input.

The dealer just hooked up the receiver's outputs to the lower binding posts (intended for the sub-amp in section).

Could this account for the "closed in" sound at the start of this thread?

I strongly believe that the Musical Fidelity amps were the culprits. The only MF amps that I've ever heard sound anything but harsh and shut in are the super-pricey TriVista line, and even then they're bettered by many components at half the price.

My last two (unfavorable) experiences with MF were with Dynaudio and B&W speakers. I wanted to hear the speakers, but instead the MF source components' weaknesses came through instead with a glaring high end and no soundstage. Switching the electronics in both cases actually gave me the demos I was looking for.

I advise you to go back to the dealer and see if they can switch something around for you to hear them again in a different light.

Graham