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Weird, I realize, but this speaker project included a mental exercise about “proper” playback for Bruckner 7”, how to facilitate hearing and figuring out what is going on with that Music. As ever, I turned different speaker and amp ideas around in my head like a Rubik’s Cube, trying to mentally line up a design with the sonic goals until they “clicked”. I have heard very little Bruckner played live, but brushes with Bruckner’s music, live or recorded, always piqued my interest, even as it confused me. My previous speakers are good enough that I have known for some time that Bruckner uses LF and dynamics “differently”, but I haven’t clearly heard, felt, or understood what he is doing before now. Very generally, I felt like I needed “more” of what I had, and it would be a plus if only the 2 speakers had to change. With these speakers (and the same MA-9S2 amps) I can finally hear and feel the incredibly rich LF sonorities that Bruckner creates. I also hear differently/better and understand better the slow to mid-tempo “crescendos” that eluded me before, now that the rising and falling is better articulated, resulting in certain rich textures that derive from amazing, subtle timbrel and dynamic instrumental contrasts, both assonant and dissonant, at times spread out over surprisingly long intervals, and at times very loud. I also enjoy the way Bruckner uses large ensembles in every register to weave tapestries of sound, including texture. The feeling I get is that Bruckner seems to be in grateful awe of Creation, and his Music makes me feel that way, too. Perhaps, once one hears and understands Bruckner this way, it is possible to hear and feel it from a car radio or a boom box. Anyway, I am just, finally, starting to get it, and it looks like I took a wild shot at this, and it’s working! In truth, when I read about these speakers, I equated them with big JBL monitors I’ve heard, and they “matched up” pretty well with my developing mental picture, which included most of my existing set-up, and I pulled the trigger. I referred several times to this project as my “latest folly”, because I was not 100% positive how this big, difficult, expensive project would work out. Heightening the tension, I built the whole project before I listened, over 3 years, and I basically feel like I lucked out. Others can decide if my 60 years interest in audio, including a fair amount of DIY, and tons of “mental cataloging”, gave me the background to steer myself where I needed to go to get what I wanted. I’ve made plenty of audio mistakes. I’m glad this was not one of them. I should also say that I remain a musical omnivore, and if I’ve lost anything by adopting these speakers, in gaining Bruckner, I have not noticed it yet. I feel like it was Troel’s design; I just curated, and I was lucky. It would be too funny if these speakers only did well with B7, but not other Bruckner!

>Sorry about image size! This is the first time I posted a picture here! It took me several tries. >

Paul S>>

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