Yes, that was my question.
Thank you!
(I think the type of music listened to primarily can drive the type of speaker an audiophile selects.)
Installing Aries Cerat Symphonia horn speakers
- Thread starter flyer
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Yes, that was my question.
Thank you!
(I think the type of music listened to primarily can drive the type of speaker an audiophile selects.)
Hi Morricab!
Ha. I would say that everyone hears “differently”, but then I’m less good at the blunt thing.
My love of ESL 57s is also as exactly as you describe: clarity, tone and detail (with the usual caveats of placement and being driven well but not over-driven). And yes, the ability to remain coherent and maintain a level of micro-dynamics irrespective of volume is their raison d’être. And yes, like you say, as long as you stayed within their limits they were awesome, but if you needed them to move a lot of air or expected large-scale dynamics, well, that was always going to be beyond their remit.
And much like you, I lived with and auditioned and heard many different higher(er) efficiency designs, convinced the world had forgotten what dynamics were in their pursuit of linearity and frequency extension, only to find out that they either A) required far more power than their specs suggested; B) traded integration for dynamics; and/or C) compromised on phase/timing coherence to accommodate aesthetics. Funnily enough, I too arrived at the thought that my future would likely either be a WE/GIP replica (likely with limited extension) or a big heavily-modified Altec (likely with limited coherence). I was initially planning to hear some more variations on those themes because I could see few alternatives, and aside from some crazy overly-expensive and not-all-that-convincingly-thought-out designs that looked good on paper from manufacturers using a slew of expensive parts but using questionable physics (no names…), I concluded the “perfect” speaker for me was probably the Unicorn Rainbow Pot-of-Gold 2000 and would need to settle instead for something more real-world (read: compromised).
To be honest, I would have been happy to do so. I accept that it’s an incredible privilege to consider owning any system over and above what many consider justifiable. And if push came to shove, a NOS DAC, a Leben and pair of LS3/5As would have continued to allow me to play whatever music I wanted and derive enjoyment regardless (perfect office system BTW).
And even were I able to justify the Vox Olympian to myself and my family, having had OBX-RWs at one stage and being a fan of Kevin Scott’s work, there would always be a nagging shard of doubt that my eyes and wallet were telling me different things than my ears and musical convictions were.
I used to be a “source first” kinda guy. If you wanted to be invited to the Naim distributor’s home to sip wine, listen to his fully-active heavily-Mana’d system, and pretend you liked Naim’s hard, forward and musically suspect album releases, you had to be.
Since then, I’ve become a Speaker First but Everything Else Matters Just As Much kinda guy. And though I realise it’s borderline hero worship, there are really only a handful of guys making products I would truly consider owning, and the products Stavros makes are some of the few that make no excuses for anything. That he makes them for much less than the others is not the reason the Symphonia is my speaker of choice, but because I’ve yet to hear anything that comes close in the things that matter most to me.
Be well - see you at Munich?
853guy
Yes, that was my question.
Thank you!
(I think the type of music listened to primarily can drive the type of speaker an audiophile selects.)
Hi Ron,
Yes, sorry I can’t be more definitive, though I think Michel’s response covered it off well. Bear in mind too, Michel will do a lot of incremental repositioning of the speakers and reconfiguring of his room over the coming weeks, so it’s likely there’s still improvements which will not only directly benefit vocal reproduction but have greater ramifications for everything else as well.
I think there’s definitely a truism in what you say apropos musical preference and speaker preference. It’s a cliché, but the friends I know who bought (and in many cases, still own) the SF Guaneri Homage tended to be Heifetz, Vengerov, Grumiaux, Hahn and Oistrakh aficionados with a heavy bent toward chamber music scored for strings. Like I say above, I’m happy to compromise on many things, but my penchant for musical expressivity manifest in an artist’s command of when they place a note, how they do it and why matters much more to me than what note they play (given most notes are already decided upon either by adhering to the score, the melody or the key), and few dynamic speakers ever really gave me that sense of when and how and why. And no speaker I’ve heard ever did it in the way the Symphonia did.
Take care, Ron.
853guy
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Michel,
What is the exact system you are playing now in your show room? As far as I could see you are just a 20 minute ride from the Brussels airport!
Yes, it is true...
I have been following your posts with great interest. I have however noticed that the word "scale" is missing from them. I appreciate the "breath of life", fundamental but for me its only part. In order to be realistic sound reproduction needs scale. Scale is needed for good dynamics - otherwise you get loudness, not powerful sound. Performers must breath and exist and move in an adequate space, something that properly amplified and fed electrostatics can do if they are not forced outside their dynamic range. Can you comment on the scale of the Symphonia?
BTW, IMHO scale is one of the biggest challenges of stereo. Technically the system is spatially limited by the two channel encoding. Rebuilding scale from minimal clues in a realistic way is a notorious fact.
I wouldn't say is the biggest challenge if you have a room like Mike or Marty. Their systems, as well as the grands, trios, yours and similar, in rooms can do scale.
Where i like the Stenheim alumine 5 that Michel also does is that I found them to do best scale among smaller sized speakers, so imo best fit unless you can house real giants.
Hey Bonzo,
He has a residency there? London must be the classical music centre of the world right now.
I’ve never heard the Aporia. I think you have to travel to South Korea to hear it, as there aren’t many in existence as I understand it and it was never really created to be a commercially available product. I’ll still be really interested in whatever GIP/WE creations Silbatone bring to Munich this year, but only as a data point and because I think they’ll play actual music through them, rather than a potential purchase.
853guy
Hi Micro,
My experience of “scale” fundamentally agrees with your thoughts with the caveat that it’s more a function of the speaker/room interaction in as much as it is the speaker itself and ultimately, a function of the recording (compression and close-miking diminishes scale). Michel’s room is one of the best I’ve personally heard, but its dimensions are on modest side of things. That’s not offered as a cop-out, but in order to be as truthful as possible, I don’t think it would be fair for me to comment definitively on that particular aspect of reproduction knowing Michel is still in the process of fine tuning the speaker to the room and vice-versa.
As I mention above in my first post, I personally felt we were sitting too close and needed to be back a bit further as well as angle the speaker so its time/phase relationship was more on-axis to my diminutive size (Michel and Stavros are taller than I am). As a semi-informed guess, I’d say once speaker positioning and room treatment are optimised, scale and its relationship to dynamics will be able to be more concretely commented on, but until then, I’d prefer not to offer anything more than the fact the way it was able to convey both micro- and macro-dynamics without blowing images out of proportion or suffering compression was still very, very impressive. The jumps from ppp to ff in the Pathétique were rendered not just with an increase in loudness, but with commensurate ease and fullness of tone. What’s more, there was absolutely no phasing or lobing I could detect, leading me to believe that those things - dynamic agility, lack of compression, ease of delivery, swelling of tone, time/phase coherence - bode well for a speaker than can scale relative to the size of the room and do so “realistically” (though we may all have different impressions of exactly what that means).
Perhaps Munich will give a better indication of what the Symphonia’s capable of, but show conditions are notoriously notorious.
Hope that partially answers your question.
Be well, Micro.
853guy
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853guy first of all let me say thank you for sharing your experience with us, it was a pleasure reading about it. Strangely enough I had been waiting for someone to write a review of the Symphonia´s ever since Matej Isaak wrote about them in Mono & Stereo but failed to deliver his impressions on part 2 like he said he would, you filled that void like probably few people will or can, so I will take a bow to you sir! Your prose has ignited my interest / lust for these speakers in the most flammable of ways.
I too adore Pavarotti and Björling makes my top five tenor list, may I be so bold as to recommend you listen to Jaume Aragall if you haven´t done so yet? In Spain where I´m from we´re also guilty of focusing on the Domingo, Kraus, Carreras trinity (add Gayarre for those more well versed) forgetting Aragall who has an absolutely wonderful voice and is better than them. If you don´t believe me listen to this guy, he knew a thing or two about singing
I too adore Pavarotti and Björling makes my top five tenor list, may I be so bold as to recommend you listen to Jaume Aragall if you haven´t done so yet? In Spain where I´m from we´re also guilty of focusing on the Domingo, Kraus, Carreras trinity (add Gayarre for those more well versed) forgetting Aragall who has an absolutely wonderful voice and is better than them. If you don´t believe me listen to this guy, he knew a thing or two about singing
Source: 432EVO Master (will be officially launched in Munich)
DAC: Aries Cerat Kassandra Signature
Preamp: Aries Cerat Impera II
Amps: Aries Cerat Concero65 SET amps
Speakers: Symphonia Bronze version
Entreq power distribution block
Entreq power cables
Entreq grounding of DAC and preamp (the Aries Cerat gear has binding posts especially dedicated to allow such grounding)
Aries Cerat Optasia interconnects
Entreq USB cable
My demo room is effectively only (and even less) 20 minute drive from the airport.
Allow me to add that by now I figured out that yes, the Symphonia do scale, a lot, but in a quite different way that I am used to. This has to do with the physics of horn speakers that are more directive, and thus forward throwing. And you need volume to get the full sense of scale these speakers are capable of.
Yet, I would like to add another absolute virtue: staging and focus. The Symphonia do this extremely well, despite the many warnings I got that horn speakers often have difficulty with that.
As they do it so well, this results and brings me back to scale which actually is there but, as mentioned, in a kind of indirect way which, once accustomed (in a smallish room of 22m²) is quickly converted by psychoacoustics to be a massive soundstage.
I never heard the girl in the Girl from Ipanema standing so firm, so clearly, so real and so the right of the right speaker as with the Symphonia, nor the true depth, width and hight of a grand piano on the stage, nor the drum battery in the back of the jazz quartet, etc. Symphonic music sounds at least as grand (in scale, on other criteria it clearly excels) as with dynamic speakers. I guess, and 853guy is a zillion times better at explaining this, this is due to the very right balance of timing, timbre, lack of compression, etc.
One other (yes, you got me launched to talk about these Symphonias...) thing is the speed and utterly resolving character of the speakers, all across the frequency range! Yes, down to the lowest octave it is capable of. In combination with the SET amps and electronics based on tubes and inverted triodes, this is everything but lifeless or 'clinical'.
I think these speakers activate room modes very differently than dynamic speakers. I can now place my listening couch in a position that was unthinkable before.
My listening position is at exact 3 meters from the tweeters. And the tweeters are at 150 cms from the front wall.
There are three versions: The standard, the bronze version (with liquid bronze finish) and the limited edition (with the liquid copper finish which you can see on the pictures from the speaker that was at CES last year)
To be noted that the changes in finish are extremely time consuming (we are talking many weeks of labour) with obviously the liquid copper finish hardest to make.
My speakers have the bronze finish on the inside side walls and the X-over boxes. I could have had the whole inside of the bass horn with the bronze finish but I choose to have the concave section with the same finish as the outside bass horn, a matter of personal taste which Aries Cerat caters for.
The pictures don't do it justice by the bronze finish is amazing. As is finish of the rest of the speaker as a matter of fact.
According to each version some of the components used in the X-over is improved as well.
Hello gents
First i want to thank Michel(flyer) for the great hospitality and patience This pair took us a bit longer to finish and ship..
I have to say that Michel's room,though smaller than i would like it to be, has some amazing treatment,which as we discovered ,most of the room treatment is highly tunable too,to further fine tune to one's taste.It was surely a nice experience to install and set up these speakers, in a room that all five surfaces had almost 100% treatment.
Michel is also very quick to pick up the techniques required to set up and adjust the speakers.The speakers are highly adjustable and a handful if one wants to exploid the 100% of the fine-tuning adjustments,and i was impressed by Michel's quick training.Bravo
853 guy,what can i say?Reading your review is a humbling act for me.I want to thank you for the kindest of words. I cannot comment on the quality of writing,just wow.I wish i could write like that
It was great meeting you again,it is always a pleasure.I wish we had more time on Sunday but we had to run catching the plane at evening..
Sometimes i get the feeling that there is a general mood or atmosphere surrounding Symphonia, claiming to be the best or among the best.
I would like to disclaim this,as these exercises in vanity do not suit us I designed the Symphonia to be, just, a way out ,for the audiophile who is tired of getting same-old usual un-involving,un-inviting boring sound, regardless of money spend and wants to settle with a final solution. A way out of the high end loophole. Judging from the reactions of the majority of people that experience the Symphonia, i humbly think we succeed. Moving somebody to tears from a first track is something i witnessed too many times,and is a bit of a shock for me...and partly,this is why i do this work. I leave the "Best speaker" claims to everyone else,as i honestly do not believe there is such thing and if there is,most likely the Symphonia would not be that....
Certainly this speaker is not for everone,and not everyone would like it.This is clear.We work for those who do search for what new Symphonia brings to the table and could not find it anywhere. After all it is not designed to be a mass production speaker, manufacturing-wise it is not possible,and was not our intention.
Best
Stavros
First i want to thank Michel(flyer) for the great hospitality and patience
This pair took us a bit longer to finish and ship..I have to say that Michel's room,though smaller than i would like it to be, has some amazing treatment,which as we discovered ,most of the room treatment is highly tunable too,to further fine tune to one's taste.It was surely a nice experience to install and set up these speakers, in a room that all five surfaces had almost 100% treatment.
Michel is also very quick to pick up the techniques required to set up and adjust the speakers.The speakers are highly adjustable and a handful if one wants to exploid the 100% of the fine-tuning adjustments,and i was impressed by Michel's quick training.Bravo
853 guy,what can i say?Reading your review is a humbling act for me.I want to thank you for the kindest of words. I cannot comment on the quality of writing,just wow.I wish i could write like that
It was great meeting you again,it is always a pleasure.I wish we had more time on Sunday but we had to run catching the plane at evening..
Sometimes i get the feeling that there is a general mood or atmosphere surrounding Symphonia, claiming to be the best or among the best.
I would like to disclaim this,as these exercises in vanity do not suit us
I designed the Symphonia to be, just, a way out ,for the audiophile who is tired of getting same-old usual un-involving,un-inviting boring sound, regardless of money spend and wants to settle with a final solution. A way out of the high end loophole. Judging from the reactions of the majority of people that experience the Symphonia, i humbly think we succeed. Moving somebody to tears from a first track is something i witnessed too many times,and is a bit of a shock for me...and partly,this is why i do this work. I leave the "Best speaker" claims to everyone else,as i honestly do not believe there is such thing and if there is,most likely the Symphonia would not be that.... Certainly this speaker is not for everone,and not everyone would like it.This is clear.We work for those who do search for what new Symphonia brings to the table and could not find it anywhere. After all it is not designed to be a mass production speaker, manufacturing-wise it is not possible,and was not our intention.
Best
Stavros
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Hello Ked
All three versions now have the Aeris tweeter with it's magnetic suspension as standard.
The Bronze (Aeneus) version has upgraded crossover parts and also include the special winded nickel/MU core midrange attenuator transformers.
Upgrades also include wiring (Cross to speaker) using our Optasia line of cables, amorphous core for the tweeter and silver/gold winding for the tweeter transformer.
Liquid bronze finish to inside of horns/crossovers is used to aesthetically differentiate the versions.
853guy first of all let me say thank you for sharing your experience with us, it was a pleasure reading about it. Strangely enough I had been waiting for someone to write a review of the Symphonia´s ever since Matej Isaak wrote about them in Mono & Stereo but failed to deliver his impressions on part 2 like he said he would, you filled that void like probably few people will or can, so I will take a bow to you sir! Your prose has ignited my interest / lust for these speakers in the most flammable of ways.
I too adore Pavarotti and Björling makes my top five tenor list, may I be so bold as to recommend you listen to Jaume Aragall if you haven´t done so yet? In Spain where I´m from we´re also guilty of focusing on the Domingo, Kraus, Carreras trinity (add Gayarre for those more well versed) forgetting Aragall who has an absolutely wonderful voice and is better than them. If you don´t believe me listen to this guy, he knew a thing or two about singing
Hello
The long waited (you are right
part 2 and final review,with extensive listening impressions was finally out,you can find it here:http://www.monoandstereo.com/2017/03/aries-cerat-symphonia-horn-speakers.html
Best
Stavros
Can I just add my two cents and support the view that this is a great thread
853 has got to be one of the most poetic, descriptive posters on the forum, and he's found a product he's really waxing lyrical on
853, just a few qs
First, you really feel these horns are truly suited to the kind of music one doesn't normally associate horns with?
They really would work playing Miles "Bitches Brew" and his 70s electric fusion?
70s prog and fusion, Mahavushnu to Magma?
London Grammar to Porcupine Tree?
Blue Note favourites to John Zorn?
John Coltrane w Pharoe Sanders to Sun Ra to Albert Ayers to Ornette Coleman late 60s free jazz?
90s King Crimson to Marillion
And all the usual horns favourites?
Their bass TRULY is extended, deep, room filling, energetic, fast and fully integrated w the other drivers?
I did love the Cessaro Liszts I've heard 3x now, but there is some disconnect w that 13" lower mids/upper bass cone
The Symphonias would really suit my room ergonomically
5.5m wide X 17m deep X 3m high at midline apex down to 1.5m side walls
If it hadn't been mentioned, current rrp for different specs?
853 has got to be one of the most poetic, descriptive posters on the forum, and he's found a product he's really waxing lyrical on
853, just a few qs
First, you really feel these horns are truly suited to the kind of music one doesn't normally associate horns with?
They really would work playing Miles "Bitches Brew" and his 70s electric fusion?
70s prog and fusion, Mahavushnu to Magma?
London Grammar to Porcupine Tree?
Blue Note favourites to John Zorn?
John Coltrane w Pharoe Sanders to Sun Ra to Albert Ayers to Ornette Coleman late 60s free jazz?
90s King Crimson to Marillion
And all the usual horns favourites?
Their bass TRULY is extended, deep, room filling, energetic, fast and fully integrated w the other drivers?
I did love the Cessaro Liszts I've heard 3x now, but there is some disconnect w that 13" lower mids/upper bass cone
The Symphonias would really suit my room ergonomically
5.5m wide X 17m deep X 3m high at midline apex down to 1.5m side walls
If it hadn't been mentioned, current rrp for different specs?
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