Audiophilepure

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“One of the most impressive things about Focal, is that their speakers all have a similar voice and tonality, but as you go up the range, progressively more music is revealed in terms of dynamics and fine detail resolution. But not everyone can afford $60k for a pair of Maestros or $20k for Sopras. $10k for a set of Kantas isn’t inexpensive, but by the time you add an amp, source and cables, marvelous sound can still be achieved for way less than a decent sportbike. Think of all the money you’ll save on speeding tickets!”

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“I would add at this point though that, if you judge your speakers by their shock value and routinely use terms like bass-slam, or if you lean toward the very taut and overtly impressive type of hyper-realistic sound, then pause for thought here because that is not what the YB is all about. They can certainly move air but, compared to the ceramic driver Estelons, they don’t quite manage that percussive leading edge nor that ruthless pistonic, chest rattling bass that I know so many love. I love it too, but these speakers are simply not like that. I wouldn’t call them gentle, but they certainly seem a little more polite than I remember the stand-mounted XC. In fact it took me about a while before I finally grew to understand their voice. Whether it was the speaker or me, who knows, but I got hooked on the timbre and texture of Tony McManus’ guitar during an afternoon listening session (where I investigated the world of the Celtic acoustic guitar) and began to understand what a great musician he is through the YB. I always admired his fantastic technique, but it was the Estelons that reinforced to me how tonally and phrase-expressive he could be, too. ”

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“My last two tracks were meant to see how female voices were reproduced. This is where the true strength of these loud speakers shine. The ribbon tweeter producers a great non fatiguing airy sound. Daniela Andrade’s cover of “La Vie En Rose” was pure and touching with her voice put on full display through the loudspeakers. ”

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“Classical fans take note; the Ezs ability to project true detail of a full orchestra is top notch. Though rated down to 40hz, a little bit of room gain goes a long way to create a strong impression of deeper bass. The larger your room, the more you will be able to take advantage of the wide soundstage these speakers are capable of. For my money, the Triangle Esprit Antal EZ speaker are just plain awesome. Combining punchy dynamics, wide dispersion and phenominal imaging, they bring every musical selection to life. The way they draw out subtle musical artifacts makes them a joy to listen ”

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“Everyone knows that tubes have their special way with voices and midrange in general and I have my fair share of experience in this field too, but I really did not expect this. Apparently this is one of those rare occasions where a magical match is made. After 20 minutes of playing time (the amp was brand new) involvement was raised to the point where it became hard to walk away. In spite of the low absolute power, the sound was incredibly captivating and dynamics were now seemingly more expansive than with either of the big transistor amps as well as the Ref 75. I couldn’t suppress a smile while I cued some vicious Madonna tracks while cranking up the volume. Smooth as smooth can be but boy now the Sabrinas sure rocked! So is this supposed power hungry aspect nonsense? Well, yes and no. If you play truly dynamic music such as classical pieces very loudly, the peaks could come out more compressed than with the Ayre and the Bryston. During my normal listening sessions playing (much more compressed-) soul, funk, jazz and electronic I did not become aware of any limitations of power, unless really pushing it to levels where the neighbours might come knocking on my door. I can imagine that a super amp such as a Soulution 511 or even 711 might extract the maximum dynamic performance from the Sabrinas but this is speculation.”

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“What you get here is a world-class wide-range driver that is exceptionally well engineered and superbly integrated into a speaker that is almost perfect for a small-to-medium-sized room. In my estimation, the carbon-fiber DDD is one of the top five driver innovations of the past 40 years, delivering the coherent phase and uniform power response first envisioned by Lincoln Walsh. Given the right amplifier and room setup, the HRS-130 ticks all the important sonic boxes and clearly edges out the competition when it comes to palpable imaging. No wonder the German Physiks HRS-130 is currently my favorite speaker under $25k.”