MM3 - please describe the sound
- Thread starter akatora
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In one word "full range". I had Avalons with JL 113 subs before, but they did not go nearly as deep as the MM3's. Otherwise they are very transparent, but also a bit unforgiving. Some recordings just don't sound that great because of recording quality - no sugercoating. Also, more than any other speaker I have owned the speakers transport you to the original recording acoustic space. As a result of this, say a piano or acoustic bass can sound completely different on each recording, depending on recording parameters (including recording engineering choices i guess).
Other caveat is they need to play at reasonable volume level to come alive.
I play computer based audio through a Trinnov processor and Perfectwave DAC MKII, trough Jungson JA-200 class A monoblocks.
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hi akatora,
i owned MM3's for over 5 years; i just sold them since i'm upgrading to the Evolution Acoustics MM7's. you can see all my system here that i have used with the MM3's. edorr, who posted his impressions just above this post, bought my MM3's a few months ago.
the MM3's are very detailed and full range, as Erik mentions. but they also are very listenable and have great ease and body. first; you have a wonderful very synergistic ribbon tweeter and ceramic mid-range. the highs are very extended and yet very natural, and there is an adjustment to vary the gain on the tweeter which helps for room integration. the mid-range is crystaline and transparent, yet also harmonically rich and organic, and will reveal the excellence of your amps and sources. you never get the sense of it being clinical or bleached, yet it is very detailed.
the bass is to die for. the 2 powered 15" woofer-subwoofer and all the adjustments allow excellent room integration and mid-range---mid-bass--deep bass transition is seamless. vocals have just the right amount of weight and chestyness yet also the clarity. cello, piano, double-bass all have the energy and growl and scale that is so hard for a speaker to do. you have true deep bass down around 10hz, so you have linearity in the bass that few speakers can achieve. yet; since the deep bass is powered, the MM3 is an easy to drive speaker so you can use a wide variety of modestly powered amplifiers and still get full range. the MM3's can move lots of air, so you will have foundation to the music most speakers can only wish they could have.
the MM3's really have that life like energy and micro dynamics, they are vivid and real yet always natural. you can see in my system page that i have many high performance sources. the MM3 can bring you everything your media can tell you. the MM3 is beautifully built and finished and just a super speaker.
highly recommended.
two more points; there are a few great speakers out there, but i've not heard a better one except the MM7's.
i disagree somewhat with Erik's comments that the MM3 can be unforgiving; i would say strongly that in my system the MM3 sounded like music and natural with most any media, but my system is quite a bit more 'mature' than Erik's. ask Erik his perspective on that issue in 6 months or a year. as the MM3's challenge the rest of his signal path to be it's best.
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I would say the MMThree is 'truthful', not 'unforgiving'. In that they reflect what is being fed to them. The better the source components and source material, the better they sound. But they can still sound fantastic even with a modest front end. And for evaluating equipment, the MMThree makes it very easy to discern sonic differences between different source components.
MMSeven
I have never heard the three or the seven. But I did hear this systme at RMAF. I found them to be slighty euphonic. I posted the above quote from the thier site because I beleive my description is consistent with thier description.
Truthful is fine too. It is a bit like taking a a $20K Hasselbladt camera to a foto shoot. If your model has some cellulite you'll see it, but it is the truth.
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Those days I was able to made ??a very interesting test of my MM2's speakers with two different amplifications. The first one was my reference darTZeel NHB-18NS Pre and NHB-108 Power combo. The other combo was Kondo KSL-M77 Pre and KSL-Kegon Power. Unfortunately my English is very poor to fully describe my impressions. The speakers character ..? I can not believe how the MM2's succeed to reproduce the character of the two different electronics and to represent the purpose of the two great designers. Incredible!
It's more like the porn industry moving from videotape to HD recording
Every pimple is revealed It's more like the porn industry moving from videotape to HD recording
I thought of that myself, but am a little less adventurous in my posting than you.
Any owners, Mike or others I have a question.
A freind just recently recieved a pair of MM3 and not to his liking so I was looking at purchasing to play arround with them in a second set-up but upon my visit I found there were several cracks in the the speakers cabinets. These cracks appear to only be at the rear side of BOTH of the speakers, what I found odd was they appear to be within the same proximitry but only on both base moduals which house the amps. They have cracked "separated" to the point that they have also damaged the clear coat finish, they vary in length from short to longer, approx 6 cracks on each speaker.
Appears to me a laminat separating issue, just seems od that the cracks are consistant on both speakers in the same proximity. Was told by the owner the speakers are approx 3 years old.
Any info on this and wondering if upon close inspection any other owners are having this issue.
A freind just recently recieved a pair of MM3 and not to his liking so I was looking at purchasing to play arround with them in a second set-up but upon my visit I found there were several cracks in the the speakers cabinets. These cracks appear to only be at the rear side of BOTH of the speakers, what I found odd was they appear to be within the same proximitry but only on both base moduals which house the amps. They have cracked "separated" to the point that they have also damaged the clear coat finish, they vary in length from short to longer, approx 6 cracks on each speaker.
Appears to me a laminat separating issue, just seems od that the cracks are consistant on both speakers in the same proximity. Was told by the owner the speakers are approx 3 years old.
Any info on this and wondering if upon close inspection any other owners are having this issue.
You can probably do a little better than that (I paid less), but the problem is they very rarely show up. Funny how the used market prices in dealer margin. A pair of $50K used Avalon Time's less than 2 years old has been listed for half a year in the $28-$30K range for months on Audiogon and won't sell. A similarly priced pair of MM3s would be gone in hours.
yes; but as i've said before, the MM3's are as good as any other $100k speaker, only their retail list is $50k. so when they sell used, they compete with speakers that are selling as used that had around or over $100k list prices new.
value....what a concept.
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