Where to demo new loudspeakers on the U.S. east coast?

[RecRoom]

Dale Pro Audio
Audio Power Tools

[Max Holland]

Dale Pro Audio

[NReichman]

Thanks guys. Since GS is such a great resource, I thought I would share my listening notes here. I was in the market for a surround system in the $5k-10k range (satelllites, sub, and hopefully controller), for my 2600 cubic foot room. I do mostly television editing and mixing, with some classical and pop album work. I bought the JBL's and can't wait to set them up after Christmas. All listening was done in a good room, without the subwoofer and with a wide variety of challenging material. "Little box syndrome" was how I described my overall disappointment with all of these speakers. None of these are Barefoots, Snells, ATCs or Thiels.

Unity Audio Rocks: extreme high silkiness, surprising tight, low and accurate bass (the only sealed cabinets of all of these) reverb around singers incredibly revealed, but already well-mixed dialog sounded like it needed more de-essing. Suffered from little-box syndrome in the mids. Probably great for music-only mixing, not as useful for post with the totally unusual highs (everyone else in the world is listening on standard high-freq drivers, not ribbon).

Dynaudios BM6A: Too forward, biting, compressed in-your-face sound. Lots of detail, but no perception of depth or room.

Focal Solo 6be: famous Focal clarity in the mids and highs, but overall a little boxy, muddy in the mid-lows. Suffered from the little-box syndrome more than the rest.

Genelecs 8040A : Air, depth, detail, fabulous balance, but chunky for classical in the 100-200Hz range. Good for dialog, but annoying for music. Sounded like work. While being detailed, listening to well-mixed soundtrack cues wasn’t inviting because of that chunkiness.

JBLs 4328P: overall more reserved than Genelec, but not lacking in detail at all, just a little disconnected between drivers, small mid scoop, but no little-box sound at all, great air and great depth. Better for soundtrack classical listening, stereo location question: as good as Genelecs? Not sure, probably calibration would help.

[smurfyou]

Thanks for the report! Did you go to Dale or were you able to get demo pairs set up in your room?

[NReichman]

I went to Audio Power Tools and Dale Pro Audio.

If budget allowed, I would like to have gone to Vintage King in LA. Oh well. Maybe next time.

[RecRoom]

I heard B&H setup a listening room as well.

[NReichman]

I found out too late about the upgrade at B&H. Last year I was there and it was truly awful. They knew it, there was a big article about what they did to fix it and make their listening room work.

The headphone stand at B&H is the best I've ever been to. They have nearly everything, and the same piece of music is playing simultaneously through everything. It's great. For the audio-geeks it's like a playground...