I have arrived at my decision. I am going to be married to Apogees for the rest of my life. Marriage date not being announced anytime soon though
A couple of weeks ago I had revisited Henk, and heard his white duettas. As you can see, he just plopped them down, brought the plinius over and put them on the ground, and started playing a speaker that was not even burnt in. We listened very near field in a big room, speakers a ridiculous 3.5 feet from each other and me at 10 feet, though I moved about. I thought the baritone vocals were gorgeous, and then we played violin, and that was that. I had made up my mind. Till now, I had always thought I had liked the Apogees because of the FR and the Grands, and the smaller ones might not be as good. But this was great. On Bruch violin sonata I heard the same real soundstage I had heard on an old pair of Divas with turntable. I had no previous doubts about the Duetta bass, it was just the mids I wanted to confirm since the good mids I had so far heard only on Henk's restored FRs and Grands. But this duetta convinced me.
I like to stress test my choices. Normally, when I like something, hearing it a second and third time highlights to me the weaknesses. But with Apogees I have been liking them more and more.
I then went to listen to the Duettas restored by True Sound Works that Lissnr (Grant) has in New York. Lissnr initially got the Divas, but couldn't fit the Divas into his 18*13 room, so a year later he sold them and brought in the Duettas, and is delighted with them.
He has his speaker 1.4m from the wall (which is more of a practical solution, Henk recommends 2m to get the best of the lower bass. Grant's also has 2m between the speakers, 3m to the headrest of the chair, and 0.27m to the sides. As you can see, a small room, as opposed to Henk's larger one. Grant has built this room himself over the years, and treated it, all DIY. Excellent planning for acoustics and power and relatively a budget set up.
And yes, his source was the Lampizator Big 7 (who would have thunk I had a golden eared twin on the other side of the pond). Grant told me he had Sophia Princess 300b (which I don't like), so I took my KR 242s with me. Putting them into the Lampi immediately energized the room. The grip on each note was more, and extension was way higher. So was the slam and the dynamics.
The Mahler 2 slams gave me a similar flavor to what I had heard on Henk's FR, though on a smaller scale. The extension of the bass was glorious. Grant uses the Tube Research Lab amps and preamp, so it is an all tubed set up.
What the apogees do very well, is that they just layer behind them like a concert stage, with the stage like a rectangle in front of you and the music layered behind...and the sound comes out as one, yet separated. I have not heard any other speaker do that. There is no “bass from the woofer below, violins from above” kind of thing. No disorientation between different types of drivers. Just one sound moving together. I haven't heard a Beethoven 9th I have liked on a hifi system, so I had stopped trying it. But at Grants I streamed a not so high-end recording of Solti's performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and wow - the tympani is not coming from some source you can isolate. It is coming from an orchestra performing on the stage. What bass - what dynamics.
I also heard the Analysis Amphitryon with an esoteric X03 and Pathos Logos integrated (valve preamp stage, SS power stage) in a large room, though the room had some echo issues and glass behind that would cause a drop in mid bass. The Analysis speakers like the Apogees remind me of more analog as compared to digital, i.e. real sounding, though they differ in presentation to the Apogees. The Analysis have very good, delicate mids that sound beautiful on vocals and violin. They are great on piano. Baritone is wonderful. But where they fall short of the apogees is the bass is good, not great, Apogees are just mindf***. To illustrate the point, I would say that if I owned the Analysis, I would be sitting laid back in my arm chair feeling music is melodious, while with Apogees I would be standing up vigorously conducting because music was exciting. And Apogees can do melody as well.
So my sonic decision is closed. Apogees all the way. When to buy is a financial decision, which I will follow after my property purchase. I think I will probably start with Duettas, stick with them, do an amps merry go round, then if things work out well in a few years will jump to a bigger room and FR.
And Duettas sound great nearfield too. Just need space behind. Make no mistake, if you end up appreciating the bass and dynamics on a duetta, albeit a small speaker, you might struggle to like the bass on any cone, no matter how big.
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