The first Q3 review

[Jeff Fritz]

What Steve said, except that he is being diplomatic. The question which we cannot answer with absolute certainty is why. Was it the ARC gear, the Q3, or some combination of both? I have a hard time believing it was the ARC gear (tho of course it is possible). Process of elimination for me leaves the speakers. I walked out thinking they simply cannot energize a large room. Tangentially related, for my taste the Q5 also left me wanting in the VLF.

The Q3 had absolutely no issues energizing my 23'6" x 20' room with superbly articulate low bass.

 

[ack]

I hear ya. But I'm told this is a major reason why:
http://reefbuilders.com/2011/07/09/neodymium-prices-magnets/

Thanks, but did the Q5, V3, V2 et al go also up? I don't think so, Magico... but feel free to correct me

 

[Steve Williams]

The Q3 had absolutely no issues energizing my 23'6" x 20' room with superbly articulate low bass.

the room at the show was larger Jeff as was the room in which the Q5 played. As Ron suggested the Q5 would have sounded better with some subs but nonetheless it was superb even without.

 

[mep]

I downloaded the Stan Getz GFI cut that Jeff referred to in his review of the Q3. The female singer is not standing to the right of my right speaker. She is close to the edge of the right speaker. Getz appears a few feet to the left of her and behind her.

 

[Steve Williams]

there could be several reasons for this right Mark

 

[Orb]

My guess is 87dB. Everyone adds 3dB for room gain these days. The Gryphon Colosseum has 160Wpc-into-8-ohms and I never ran out of headroom.

I think that is pretty much spot on, from what I understand Keith Howard measured them at around 87db sensitivity.
The mean aspect though was a monster impedance/phase relationship in the low bass, I will need to double check but I thought they measured a phase up to 70degree and impedance close to that down to 2.3 ohms I think.
Their overall peak dissipation resistance value came out to around 0.9 ohms I think somewhere between 50 and 80hz, that is a monster.

That aside seems Paul Miller has the same feelings as you Jeff on these speakers.
Cheers
Orb

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

I am now very interested by this speaker ...

The tortured impedance curve and low sensitivity (to me anything lower than 90 dB) would suggest that a powerful amplifier stable in low impedance likely an SS would be warranted, 0.9 Ohms, especially in the bass region is low...
In the show were the Q3 driven by ARC tube amplifiers, if yes which ones? ...

 

[Steve Williams]

Hi

I am now very interested by this speaker ...

The tortured impedance curve and low sensitivity (to me anything lower than 90 dB) would suggest that a powerful amplifier stable in low impedance likely an SS would be warranted, 0.9 Ohms, especially in the bass region is low...
In the show were the Q3 driven by ARC tube amplifiers, if yes which ones? ...

as I stated earleer in this thread the Q3 was driven by the just released ARC flagship amp the Reference 250.

 

[Orb]

Funny enough PM or Keith Howard did suggest the reference ARCs would be fine or other comparable tube amps, I should had thought to mention that as a caveat about the peak dissipation resistance.
Cheers
Orb

 

[mep]

there could be several reasons for this right Mark

Sure Steve. It could be as simple as superior imaging speakers. It could be the electronics. It could be the room. It could be all of the above.

 

[mauidan]

I downloaded the Stan Getz GFI cut that Jeff referred to in his review of the Q3. The female singer is not standing to the right of my right speaker. She is close to the edge of the right speaker. Getz appears a few feet to the left of her and behind her.

This track played while I was listening to the evening Jazz Show on PS Audio's internet station etracks tonight.

On my system the female singer was to the right and in back of the right speaker.

 

[ack]

Here's the HiFiNews review - what's 'impedance phase angle'? How does it differ from response phase angle?

 

[Steve Williams]

dead link

 

[ack]

Corrected

 

[Steve Williams]

still no luck at my end

 

[ack]

Worked after my edit, now it doesn't - will have to do it the hard way: go http://www.absolutesounds.com/index.php?pageNum_press_rs=0&totalRows_press_rs=333&page=17 and click the PDF

 

[Steve Williams]

perfect

 

[microstrip]

Once again (the other one I am thinking about is the The Sonus Faber critic), we have strange results in the bass measurements in an Hifi News review. KH reports 42Hz at -6dB and considers it disappointing, in contradiction with the data and report of Jeff, that reported very good bass performance.

Unhappily they do not publish full range graphs of the axial response and IMHO it seems that this -6dB relative to 200Hz figure can be misleading.

 

[djanggo]

This track played while I was listening to the evening Jazz Show on PS Audio's internet station etracks tonight.

On my system the female singer was to the right and in back of the right speaker.

Same here, tried the same track in 2 different set ups. Astrud's voice is and was as always (own this Getz album - Verve cd, for almost 20 yrs) just slightly off center to the right behind the right speaker. Well, if I switched in the phase invert on my pre it did diffused slightly more to the right. Amazing to be able to have her singing "outside" of right speaker. Must be one extra ordinary imaging set of speakers.

 

[LL21]

My system was set up by the Wilson distributor here, and he did a nice job in a sub-optimal room. in any event, her voice is just about 6-10 inches to the right of the right midrange speaker cone (ie, standing next to the outer edge of my right speaker) and the guitar is about 2.5 feet left of the Right midrange speaker cone. My speakers are about 11 feet apart center to center.