Technics SB-C700; Best speakers <$2,000?

[dallasjustice]

I haven't heard these speakers. But I read this review and looked at the measurements and I'm now interested in hearing them. Anyone here heard these little beauties?

One of the big attractions for me is the exquisitely smooth polar response and almost ESL-like time domain measurements. These speakers exhibit close to state of art lateral off axis among two-way monitor speakers. Oh, and by the way, they cost $1,699 per pair.





However, we once again see two completely opposite subjective opinions. Stereophile loved it and What Hifi hated it. What gives? I might just buy a pair out of sheer curiousity since my first stereo system was given to me when I was 10 years old and it was a Technics rig.

Best less than $2,000 or maybe best less than $10,000?

 

[dallasjustice]

would take what hifi reveiw with pinch of salt. their room is over damped to the rafters by all acounts.

Thanks. I take ALL reviews with a huge pinch of salt.

Herb compared them to the vaunted Kef LS50s and he basically said these guys smoked em'.

 

[RayDunzl]

One of the big attractions for me is the exquisitely smooth polar response and almost ESL-like time domain measurements.

Here's my ESL hybrid step response at the listening position (if that's a valid comparison). Red, uncorrected, Blue, with AcourateDRC. I can't do a polar response, but I'm used to their directivity. I don't have to worry about the walls and ceiling, all I see is the bounce in the long dimension of the room (and the initial dipole bounce) when looking at measurements.



I think one of your Acourate comments in another thread made me buy it, a couple of weeks ago. Thank you.

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Well, here's a Quest Z, prior model of the same speaker:


Fig.8 MartinLogan Quest Z, step response on mid-panel axis at 45" (5ms time window, 30kHz bandwidth).


Fig.5 MartinLogan Quest Z, lateral response family at 45", normalized to response on mid-panel axis, from back to front: differences in response 90–5 degrees off-axis, reference response, differences in response 5–90 degrees off-axis

http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1093ml/index.html

 

[TBone]

never gone out of my way to audition a technics speaker before, however, these do look interesting ... and only 18lb`s ...

 

[dallasjustice]

Here's my ESL hybrid step response at the listening position (if that's a valid comparison). Red, uncorrected, Blue, with AcourateDRC. I can't do a polar response, but I'm used to their directivity.

View attachment 24721

I think one of your Acourate comments in another thread made me buy it, a couple of weeks ago. Thank you.

Very nice step response. I love acourate too. I had a little mishap recently with a measurement so I'm out of commission for a little bit, again. I may get these little babies just for some fun and later turn them into rear surround channels in a four channel surround/mix-down setup.


I've posted many measurements on this forum. Unfortunately, I've run out of channels to loop back through Jriver ASIO line-in. I have a 6CH setup with four subs and R/L speakers. My Hilo only has 8CH in the mixer the way it's currently configured. That's not enough for me to loopback. I need channel 7/8 to direct REW output through my Hilo and copy to an unused ASIO reccord channel so I can use that channel as my Jriver ASIO line-in channel. For some reason, Jriver will crash unless the ASIO line-in channel is not the same number as one of the output channels in use. I need to crack open the monstrous Hilo manual and figure out how to set the Hilo up into 16CH mode. I think I can loopback in that mode and get some new measurements up. My predicted measurements are scary flat with four subs. I have no doubt that REW loopback measurements will correlate well, since they always do.

I know there's some controversy about poor lateral off axis with ESLs. However, I bet that can work to your advantage in certain situations.

Michael.