I can't remember the last time I started a thread. My pinkies are so unused to typing that they appear to have minds of their own. Anyhow, October of last year, a terrible monsoon hit us. The pool had been full when the downpours came that lasted for hours straight. The overflow plus the rain fall overwhelmed the drainage system even as the pumps ran non-stop. The result, a saturated retaining wall that once again allowed water to seep into the basement. Not a flood just enough water to warp the floorboards and enough water to dampen the rock wool in some panels that potentially could cause mold issues. Well, here we go again. It's been over a decade since the first occurence and this time a year and some more monsoons later no more leaks. Next month the renovations to the interior of our music room will begin. Now older I wanted more light so I hired a lighting designer who will work with my favorite acoustician (Appears to know what I like better than I do 
) to work together and before my next birthday in February have "The Lair" back singing and rocking.
In the year that the Lair has been under observation, I wasn't music-less. We set up the showroom we've been hoping to have for some time now in the heart of the Makati Business District at New World Hotel right across the flagship stores of LV, Dior and Patek. That has been a lot of fun and has gained some interesting attention from people outside of known audiophile circles.
At home is where all the action was as I went into a deep dive into the smaller products in our product matrix. These products while "small-er" than those we have becomed accustomed to here at WBF. WBF has the reputation of hosting the most number of members with LARGE (shouting intentional) systems. The speakers I will shortly speak of are indeed "small" by WBF norms and in the age of ever shrinking class D amps, the integretad amps in rotation are all full width and at least 2RU tall.
The three integrateds are, in order of ascending prices, the Constellation Inspiration, the GanFET Java DS Carbon, and the CH Precision I1. I wanted to match the gear with gear in the same relative price ranges while in keeping with the mission of putting the systems to be as simple as possible in layout, space consumption and of course ease of use while delivering max pleasure. In short no Mullets. No "cheating" with say Master Built Ultras or Jorma Statements. No SGM, No Air Force 3s and up, you get the picture. First up......
The Melody in My Ears - The Marten Parker Trio, Diamond Edition
Yes this whole essay of sorts could be named "Air Quotes". There. I did it again. Two and a half way speakers are niche within a niche. Over here in the Philippines, they are often overlooked. Thought of as the middle children of the speaker world. Not a monitor, not quite a full fledge floorstander, A point five. More than a two way less than a 3, literally something in between. Designed as the cost effective solution to a small two way's baffle step issues, 2.5 ways do have a charm about them that has made them very popular in places where space is at a premium. As we know implementation is everything and with these "small" floor standers, I can categorically say that they in no way shape or form perform like a waypoint. This speaker has it in it to be a final destination given both broad and particular use cases.
This is not a review so you can look up all the technical details here. I will simply try to share what I feel they do best and add some insight on other stuff along the way. The Trio is a master of low level listening besting even my resident pair of 2912 Stats. In my bedroom which hosts every speaker under 40"s tall as they are delivery inspected and demo units burned in, The Trio Diamond edition has been the best at delivering a full soundstage, the best expression of timbre, the most total presentation from top to bottom at levels that are vanishingly low. I'm talking levels just slightly above the ambient noise of a room with HVAC running. It carries this all the way up to boogie levels even if the latter is and will always be the analog of taking your fast car onto onramps. For real world listening it is constantly good. It was very easy to pinpoint the strength's of the Constellation, Java and CH respectively.
It really isn't a halfway point of anything but a thing in and of itself. If pressed I would say they sound much more like a big monitor giving off the sense of agility of a small monitor and the midbass vibes of a larger one......maybe even monitors with a small sub as the excellently integrated passive radiators on the rear of the baffle go lowwwwwww. Does it have the bass power and articulation of it's big brothers, no. What they do have is that "one voice" quality that starts to fall apart as listening distance is decreased. Monitor afficionados I think know what I am so desperately and failing to convey. That nearfield listening to loudspeakers whose main midrange units are allowed to run wide and free as Secretariat at the Triple Crown did, has a charm that is addicting and very, very satisfying. This is the speaker that will give Sub Sat performance in a neat package. Not small but small-er the perhaps but no, not small in sound at all, like I said not even at the lowest listening levels where the soundstage and timbral elements remained stable. The top end could be jarring out of the box but simply running the supplied burn in disc with them at very low levels over a period of two days was enough to have the dielectrics settle. They were properly singing within about a week of regular get up in the morning and before going to bed use. At this point I had become curious about what would happen if well, we got a bit crazy soooooooo.....
What the heck, I popped in the KR P135, KR Circlotron Monos. Then a "simplified" CH set up of C1.2 and M1 Monos came in. The performance envelope expanded hence my statement that they could be a final destination speaker but these amps were to be frank, too much dosh for the improvements as I felt the amplification was underutilized and thus an inefficient use of resources. They could very well have done about the same for less eg Kronzilla Monos or a A1.5 Stereo amp for both the bedroom use case and the open plan home use case in our showroom that mimics the same being the size of an open kitchen, living, dining and maybe even a lanai.
In a nutshell, they passed the wake up test, the nighty night test but most importantly the wife and kids test. This speaker had my daughter come in to hang out and listen to her playlists which range from Pop to Musical Theater. Margie (aka The Speaker of our House LOL ) declared them "malambing" which translates into english as a combination of affectionate and demonstrative. This speaker falls into my "can we keep him?" list. It is a speaker that makes me glad that we are distributors and get to enjoy these ourselves even if just for a little bit. They also made their way to partner Keith's condo, open plan living and dining, and the results for him and Sri were pretty much identical with the exception that his evaluation was done solely with another CH I1. We both used OG Master Built Reference "only" throughout. Oh I also had the benefit of having a Stromtank S2500. The older not yet SMPS Inspiration benefitted from the Stromtank most obviously. Can't wait to get my hands on the new Constellations. Follow up perhaps around February. Anyway, winner winner love this speaker. Much as they had that effect on the ladies of the household comes he that drew the boys in.......... dubbed by Damon Von Schweikert as........
) to work together and before my next birthday in February have "The Lair" back singing and rocking.In the year that the Lair has been under observation, I wasn't music-less. We set up the showroom we've been hoping to have for some time now in the heart of the Makati Business District at New World Hotel right across the flagship stores of LV, Dior and Patek. That has been a lot of fun and has gained some interesting attention from people outside of known audiophile circles.
At home is where all the action was as I went into a deep dive into the smaller products in our product matrix. These products while "small-er" than those we have becomed accustomed to here at WBF. WBF has the reputation of hosting the most number of members with LARGE (shouting intentional) systems. The speakers I will shortly speak of are indeed "small" by WBF norms and in the age of ever shrinking class D amps, the integretad amps in rotation are all full width and at least 2RU tall.
The three integrateds are, in order of ascending prices, the Constellation Inspiration, the GanFET Java DS Carbon, and the CH Precision I1. I wanted to match the gear with gear in the same relative price ranges while in keeping with the mission of putting the systems to be as simple as possible in layout, space consumption and of course ease of use while delivering max pleasure. In short no Mullets. No "cheating" with say Master Built Ultras or Jorma Statements. No SGM, No Air Force 3s and up, you get the picture. First up......
The Melody in My Ears - The Marten Parker Trio, Diamond Edition
Yes this whole essay of sorts could be named "Air Quotes". There. I did it again. Two and a half way speakers are niche within a niche. Over here in the Philippines, they are often overlooked. Thought of as the middle children of the speaker world. Not a monitor, not quite a full fledge floorstander, A point five. More than a two way less than a 3, literally something in between. Designed as the cost effective solution to a small two way's baffle step issues, 2.5 ways do have a charm about them that has made them very popular in places where space is at a premium. As we know implementation is everything and with these "small" floor standers, I can categorically say that they in no way shape or form perform like a waypoint. This speaker has it in it to be a final destination given both broad and particular use cases.
This is not a review so you can look up all the technical details here. I will simply try to share what I feel they do best and add some insight on other stuff along the way. The Trio is a master of low level listening besting even my resident pair of 2912 Stats. In my bedroom which hosts every speaker under 40"s tall as they are delivery inspected and demo units burned in, The Trio Diamond edition has been the best at delivering a full soundstage, the best expression of timbre, the most total presentation from top to bottom at levels that are vanishingly low. I'm talking levels just slightly above the ambient noise of a room with HVAC running. It carries this all the way up to boogie levels even if the latter is and will always be the analog of taking your fast car onto onramps. For real world listening it is constantly good. It was very easy to pinpoint the strength's of the Constellation, Java and CH respectively.
It really isn't a halfway point of anything but a thing in and of itself. If pressed I would say they sound much more like a big monitor giving off the sense of agility of a small monitor and the midbass vibes of a larger one......maybe even monitors with a small sub as the excellently integrated passive radiators on the rear of the baffle go lowwwwwww. Does it have the bass power and articulation of it's big brothers, no. What they do have is that "one voice" quality that starts to fall apart as listening distance is decreased. Monitor afficionados I think know what I am so desperately and failing to convey. That nearfield listening to loudspeakers whose main midrange units are allowed to run wide and free as Secretariat at the Triple Crown did, has a charm that is addicting and very, very satisfying. This is the speaker that will give Sub Sat performance in a neat package. Not small but small-er the perhaps but no, not small in sound at all, like I said not even at the lowest listening levels where the soundstage and timbral elements remained stable. The top end could be jarring out of the box but simply running the supplied burn in disc with them at very low levels over a period of two days was enough to have the dielectrics settle. They were properly singing within about a week of regular get up in the morning and before going to bed use. At this point I had become curious about what would happen if well, we got a bit crazy soooooooo.....
What the heck, I popped in the KR P135, KR Circlotron Monos. Then a "simplified" CH set up of C1.2 and M1 Monos came in. The performance envelope expanded hence my statement that they could be a final destination speaker but these amps were to be frank, too much dosh for the improvements as I felt the amplification was underutilized and thus an inefficient use of resources. They could very well have done about the same for less eg Kronzilla Monos or a A1.5 Stereo amp for both the bedroom use case and the open plan home use case in our showroom that mimics the same being the size of an open kitchen, living, dining and maybe even a lanai.
In a nutshell, they passed the wake up test, the nighty night test but most importantly the wife and kids test. This speaker had my daughter come in to hang out and listen to her playlists which range from Pop to Musical Theater. Margie (aka The Speaker of our House LOL ) declared them "malambing" which translates into english as a combination of affectionate and demonstrative. This speaker falls into my "can we keep him?" list. It is a speaker that makes me glad that we are distributors and get to enjoy these ourselves even if just for a little bit. They also made their way to partner Keith's condo, open plan living and dining, and the results for him and Sri were pretty much identical with the exception that his evaluation was done solely with another CH I1. We both used OG Master Built Reference "only" throughout. Oh I also had the benefit of having a Stromtank S2500. The older not yet SMPS Inspiration benefitted from the Stromtank most obviously. Can't wait to get my hands on the new Constellations. Follow up perhaps around February. Anyway, winner winner love this speaker. Much as they had that effect on the ladies of the household comes he that drew the boys in.......... dubbed by Damon Von Schweikert as........
