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I have owned Mini-Grands, and
currently have Studio Grands. I would be delighted to share the set-up
travails of the Mini Grands, as well as a direct comparison with the
Studio Grands (I owned both speakers for some time at different locations,
but with identical front end and amplification). While the two speakers
are obviously cut from the same sonic cloth, they are VERY different. I
find the Studio Grands far more tolerant of location, and far more
consistent in soundstaging. By comparison, the Mini Grands are INSANELY
sensitive to rake angle, toe - in, distance to the reflective wall,
surface of the wall, cables (I went through many iterations, settling
finally on XLO for the warmth and glow of the midrange).
It took four months and two phone calls with Jason Bloom to get the Mini
Grands just right, at which point they were exquisitely focused and very
involving, detailed, and precise.
The Studio Grands just got plonked into an approximate location, one hour
of toe-in fiddling, a bit of tweaking with separation distance, and they
sounded better than anything I've ever heard in my life. They absolutely
blew the Mini Grands away in every respect, with an ease of presentation
and a sense of limitless dynamics - they seemed to make each octave wider,
as if there were more subtle graduations of frequency that had been
missing. And this is compared to the Mini Grand, which I would describe
with the same superlatives compared to any other dynamic speaker. I can't
single out any aspect of the studios performance - they are the best
speakers I have ever heard, period. The midrange and top end are quite
beyond compare. Unfortunately, this was followed by the longest, most
painful break-in period - about two hundred hours of deteriorating sound,
indistinct bass and a slightly constricted midrange, which finally
improved to the open, relaxed and glorious sound that I heard the first
day.
I have tried various amp and pre-amp combos, including Aragon, Audio
Research tube preamp (interesting sound), but couldn't' find anything that
sounded as good as the Nakamichi and Macro References in the same price
range. I haven't had the opportunity to try the big name gear - Krell,
Levinson, etc., but I did hear a pair of stages with Classé pre &
power - sounded great.
Sadly, I had to sell the Mini Grands, and miss them a lot. The Studio
Grands need a lot of space, and while they sound very involving in the
near field, I find I spend most listening time about 18 feet away from the
speakers, particularly with large-scale symphonic music - the soundstage
seems to snap into a very realistic perspective at that distance, without
losing any width or lateral precision.
Maximum output levels are beyond anything that I can stand, and I listen
to music loud, in a fairly big and very open room. I have never perceived
dynamic compression or distortion of any kind from the Studio Grands,
whereas the Mini Grand definitely has a threshold beyond which they seem
to harden up in the upper midrange. I have noticed the tweeter/mid ribbons
oscillating wildly on loud transients, but without any apparent audible
effect! This is something I've seen on every long Apogee tweeter/mid
ribbon, much less on the stage. Does anyone know why it doesn't create an
audible effect? Does it stress the ribbon? I have never understood this,
and it bothers me immensely, especially now that we will all have such a
hard time replacing them.
Another comment on the Studio Grand - the subs are very good. I had a pair
of Conrad Johnson Synthesis References before, the ones with the upright
coffin-shaped subs (this is a GREAT subwoofer), and I tried the subs on
the Mini Grand instead of the integrated subs. This was a vast
improvement, much less so with the Studio Grands. They did seem more
authoritative than the integrated studio grand subs, but not by much, and
I didn't feel the need to leave them in the system, whereas I did want
them with the Mini Grands.
There are a few apogee owners in here in Jamaica, I will try to get them
involved in this. I refuse to change to anything else, and I have noticed
that most apogee owners are like that - insanely loyal to superior but
quirky technology.
Addition information:
I think the subs required the very long break-in, and I suspect that
some of the break-in time on the panels may have been the internal Symo
cable that Apogee uses between the crossover and the panels (This is about
a 2 foot distance from the back of the sub, where the connections are. The
Studio Grands are bi-wired on the panels, bi-amped to the subs, so they
need three runs of speaker cable per speaker. This led me to run the
Crowns in a somewhat unusual configuration, one channel on the panels, the
other on the sub, with each stereo amp handling only one channel of the
speaker. This allowed me to use a three foot speaker cable run. I can do
this with the Crowns because they are a quite unusual amp.
The Crown Macro Reference:
This was really a stroke of good luck that I got these. Crown is a
professional sound reinforcement company, specializing in very high-power
amplifiers and also professional microphones. They have a tremendous
reputation in pro-audio circles, and are very often found in high-end
studios. There is a bit of a story behind the macro-reference, because one
of Crown's advisors happens to be a very dedicated audiophile by the name
of Dr. Barkley. Crown is actually the largest manufacturer of amplifiers
in the world, including the very big RF amplifiers used to transmit radio,
and Barkley was convinced that they had the theoretical R&D muscle and
experience to build a superior audiophile amplifier. He was given an
R&D team, nearly unlimited budget, and started from the ground up,
building on Crown's experience with things like high-power thermal
tracking, resonance control and
distortion effects.
The end result is bit frightening. 730 Watts / channel, 1500 watts bridged
mono (current mode for low-impedance reactive loads like stats and early
apogees) or 3000 watts bridged mono (voltage mode, for saner impedances).
The damping factor is over 20,000 up to 1000 Hz, still 1000 at 20KHz.
(This is an amp that will toss a speaker across the room). S/N is 137db
(very, very quiet) and distortion is vanishingly low, particularly 3rd
harmonic and IM. They don't run very hot, because they have no heatsinks
externally, they use a patented fin-extrusion technology, a bit like a
radiator, that packs a huge surface area into a tightly folded line just
inside the case. The output devices are not standard transistors, they are
"built" from components into PNP and NPN pairs. The amplifier
circuitry is actually doubled throughout, the signal side has no
protection or monitoring at all, whereas the "analogue" of the
circuit, which tracks the signal side thermally and electrically, is
monitored. The protection systems kick in when the "analogue"
goes into stress, so the load never has to be subjected to any protection
at all. There is also some weird stuff about tuning resonance's in the MHz
range, and a whole slew of patents, but the result is $4,000 amplifier
that many people think may be the finest ever built - or the worst. The
audiophile community in the US is very divided about this amp - it caused
a massive stir when it was introduced, with an immediate polarization into
"best in the world" and "hugely overrated" camps. They
have the reputation of combining the benefits of Transistors and Tubes
(Valves). I don't know how true this is, because I don't think I've heard
a truly great tube amplifier in familiar conditions (only at dealers).
I've compared them to everything I can from here in Jamaica, and have
never heard them bettered, but this doesn't include the biggies. They are
very very fast, very extended, staggering bass control (that damping
factor) and they seem harmonically totally neutral and free of any grain -
every speaker I've tried them with (Maggies, Apogees, Fried, Conrad
Johnson, JBL, Tannoy) sounded better.
I got the Studio Grands and Mini Grands from a dealer in Miami - Apogees
have never been sold here.
Incidentally, the addition of the subwoofers on the Studios seems to
lessen the room mode resonance in the deep bass. I have used the panels
full-range by themselves (gorgeous) but because the bass ribbon seems to
have a rising bottom-end below about 80-100 Hz, they excite room modes
more than when I use the subs, where I can control the output power below
80 Hz. Less boom, more very low bass without overloading the room, and a
subsequently bigger and more open soundstage. The sacrifice is the effect
of the DAX on the signal, which is minimal but noticeable by direct
comparison.
I have a fairly big room though - 16 ft by 26 ft, with one wall opening
fully, so bass modes aren't too much of an issue, except for my neighbors!
Regards
Joseph Manley, Kingston, Jamaica
By the way - my wife, who sings professionally and has a very fine ear,
preferred the Mini Grands. She found them more exciting sonically, and
particularly loved them without the subs (i.e. as Stages). I must admit
that they are beautifully focused speakers, and they certainly don't
dominate a room as ridiculously as the bigger panels. |
