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In sum: these are extraordinary speakers, especially at moderate listening volumes and with instrumental material. They have a clear, but not strident, high range that brings out tremendous detail. On a Glenn Gould recording of Bach's Toccatas, I can actually hear him humming in the background as he plays. It's incredibly subtle, I'd never heard it on my Klipsch setup before, but it adds so much to the performance.
Off-axis performance is unusually impressive. From six feet, with the monitors spaced five feet apart, I hear a slightly dispersed singer the corner of my room. If I move to two feet away, still centered, it's almost like wearing high-end headphones. The vocals become extremely intimate. I imagine this effect would be even more pronounced if I had a larger room and more space to push them apart. It's this off-axis performance that gives them such an enormous soundstage.
I won't belabor their excellence as I've already done so in the review below, but I will say: an impartial panel at AVS Forum rated them above B&W's $2200 8-series bookshelf speaker in blind testing. They are very, very good.
Having said that, are there any caveats? Maybe. The overwhelming majority of my listening is only somewhat louder than a strong speaking voice. While these Danas are capable of painful volumes, pushing them intro the triple-digit decibels will take away from the balance that makes them such a pleasing listen. Given that they aren't particularly efficient, you'll need powerful hardware to have good results at those listening levels. Likewise, bass response is only average for a monitor of this size, so you'll want a subwoofer unless your material is very old, or your listening volumes very soft.
Here's the long version, with pictures:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=903375
Rating:  [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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