Face The Music
15-12-2008, 13:53
Hi All!
I'm fairly new to the forum but I'd like to pose readers a little Christmas teaser...
For the past three years I had been pretty satisfied with my Naim/Neat Motive 2 setup. The sound was detailed and enjoyable, the bass seemed to go pretty low for such small boxes and the system appeared well balanced and musical.
However, I had a niggling doubt that I was missing out on something. A number of related events pushed me to the decision to try changing my speakers.
An article by David Price in Hi-Fi World singing the praises of infinite baffle loudspeakers and criticising the plethora of poor sounding reflex loaded speakers
The polarised opinions that surround the Isobarik speaker. People either seem to absolutely love them or hate them.
My conclusion that whilst turntables, CD players and amps have all advanced both technically and in performance terms over the last thirty years, the humble loudspeaker has progressed the least far. This view was strengthened by reading Martin Colloms excellent book (High Performance Loudspeakers).
The quote (I forget from whom) that as far as loudspeakers are concerned, "a good big-un will always beat a good little-un."
An opportunity arose to purchase a rather tatty looking pair of vintage 1982 DMS Isobariks and I thought what the hell, I'll spend a bit of time restoring the cabinet finish and making some new grilles and I'll still be able to get my money back if I don't get on with them. So I took the plunge and bought a pair of 26 year old speakers...
There is much folklore and many words of wisdom written and spoken about Isobariks in hi-fi forums and pubs alike:
"They are very difficult to drive. You need at least a Naim 250 power amp and going active is really the only way."
"They have a very coloured sound and don't image well."
"They are as ugly as hell and have the lowest WAF of anything under the sun."
"You need a large room to let them breath."
"You need two people to lift them."
From my experience I can now confirm that one of these statements is true and the rest are false. But can you guess which?
I'm fairly new to the forum but I'd like to pose readers a little Christmas teaser...
For the past three years I had been pretty satisfied with my Naim/Neat Motive 2 setup. The sound was detailed and enjoyable, the bass seemed to go pretty low for such small boxes and the system appeared well balanced and musical.
However, I had a niggling doubt that I was missing out on something. A number of related events pushed me to the decision to try changing my speakers.
An article by David Price in Hi-Fi World singing the praises of infinite baffle loudspeakers and criticising the plethora of poor sounding reflex loaded speakers
The polarised opinions that surround the Isobarik speaker. People either seem to absolutely love them or hate them.
My conclusion that whilst turntables, CD players and amps have all advanced both technically and in performance terms over the last thirty years, the humble loudspeaker has progressed the least far. This view was strengthened by reading Martin Colloms excellent book (High Performance Loudspeakers).
The quote (I forget from whom) that as far as loudspeakers are concerned, "a good big-un will always beat a good little-un."
An opportunity arose to purchase a rather tatty looking pair of vintage 1982 DMS Isobariks and I thought what the hell, I'll spend a bit of time restoring the cabinet finish and making some new grilles and I'll still be able to get my money back if I don't get on with them. So I took the plunge and bought a pair of 26 year old speakers...
There is much folklore and many words of wisdom written and spoken about Isobariks in hi-fi forums and pubs alike:
"They are very difficult to drive. You need at least a Naim 250 power amp and going active is really the only way."
"They have a very coloured sound and don't image well."
"They are as ugly as hell and have the lowest WAF of anything under the sun."
"You need a large room to let them breath."
"You need two people to lift them."
From my experience I can now confirm that one of these statements is true and the rest are false. But can you guess which?