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Serge wrote:

The SIlbatone room was very large. They played an Edith Piaf record on a mono WE16B (or A, not sure). They played it very loud which I don't like, ever. I felt the system was made to show dynamics and it did it. The dynamic range was really undistorted and huge. But I've got the feeling that there was no power or body behind the jumps and dives of pure SPL if you see what I mean. I'd say a touch of pneumatic sound was there - no real drive behind the notes. It was not bad though since the music was coherent but lacking substance a bit - both tonally and artistically.

I guess the nature of the business dictate to get bigger room and to have more people in there. Funny but at the show manufactures “compete” in the eyes of stupid public opinion by the size of their rooms as a bigger room sends a message that the company does well rand and afford to pay those exuberant fees for larger rooms. Needless to say that the larger room, and particularly the German style with glass, blows in a face of most of audio. The Silbatone own speakers are topologically not truly equipped to deal with larger rooms without retuning. In the past Silbatone I think invited third party consultant to help them to retune crossovers and to fit the speaker to the room acoustically. I do not know if they did recalibration of the speaker for the large room. To a degree the “lacking substance a bit - both tonally and artistically” that you report might derive from some challenges in Fundamentals Channel – something the slides very first in large room, particularly with the speakers where Fundamentals in the melody “range” can’t be individually dial in;  topologically it would be possible only with Cessaro Gamma. There is a catch however. The full bloom of Fundamentals in a large room and in context of full range is very complex. Neither  Silbatones are full range but still going for “full bloom of Fundamentals” would be in a way suicidal and people at the show would not “get” it. It is much more preferable at the show to strip harmonics, subdue Fundamentals and to demo fast and clean “dynamic” sound. I guess this is what Silbatone was doing….

Serge wrote:

Then they put on stereo with their horns and the sound was in many ways similar to original WE. Of course it had much more extension at the top end and the bass was weighty but as an approach to showing me the musical performance it was very much the same. Dynamic but a bit empty.

I am disappointed with Silbatone own horns. I think that idea was wonderful, the design was superb and with proper mind set they could proper that speaker to very significant popularity. With near ¼ mil dollars price tag they killed the whole idea. It does not take a lot of brain to make an acoustic system expensive, it hake much more wisdom to make it finance-efficient. Altec Lansing sells their Altec A7 for $8K, Silbatone topologically in the very same price category as Altec A7, so why A7 cost $8K but Silbatone $235K? The sonic advantage that Silbatone might have over Altec might exist but it will be still restricted by the topological limitation of the both speakers. The whole point was to have the new Silbatone as I said before for 20K and to have it hugely scalable- people can chose what drivers they want, how much they are willing to pay and what kind sound they are willing to get. The whole great, from my perspective, notion of the new Silbatone design was that it can accommodate absolutely anything. The type of the bass bin that Silbatone use fakes any bass drivers you wish. The MF horn has no limit in length, so put in the 1” or 4” driver – does not mater, juts change the tail of the horn and slide the horn in time-aligned position. For sure setting the price of $235K Silbatone killed all of it. Unfortunatly….

Serge wrote:

The sound I like most was the one at Audio Tekne's room. I never listened to them before. The speakers were very ugly. I'd say extremely ugly. And 4-way, drive units arranged as if by chance. The big ugly turntable cost 53000 euro which made me cringe. Later I was told that the speaker cost 300 something 000 euros. But the sound was decent. The frequency range was limited, there was a hint of some colouration and distortion in the highs but the music performance was meaningful and within-reach as opposed to something distant of which I have no concern.

Yes, they are extremely ugly but I do like it as a “package”. This super ugly shape with unfinished particles board panels and screws sticking from the speaker work out fine with me. I would be much more annoyed if they have the same ugly speaker with piano-gloss finish. I do not know anything about Audio Tekne and I do not truly understand what they did or where trying to do.

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