Greg Br
Second Unit
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2001
- Messages
- 437
Well I have had the Diva 6.1 package for three days now and thought I would post my initial impressions.
My previous speakers were two JBL tower speakers(circa 1992), a cheap JBL center and two JBL N24 rear speakers.
6.1-Obviously I have only about 15 hours on these speakers so they are not yet broke in. I would agree with everyone that the looks of these speakers are awesome. They have a elegance about them that says "look at me I am so marvalous". The wood on mine was darker than when I demoed them and the pattern was tighter. Unfortunately the wood does not exactly match the center and rear speakers but it does not look bad either. The top mounted tweeter adds to the elegant feel of the speakers and my initial feeling is I would rather have the C3 for the same look. I demoed the following speakers before buying the Divas, Paradigm 100's, Klipsch RF-7's, and Martin Logan Aeon's. I thought that Paradigms were the most complete speaker of the three so I will compare the Divas to them. The 6.1's absolutely kick but on the high's and for me was one of the strengths of the speaker. The Paradigms were bright and fatiguing, while I could listen to the smoothness of the Divas all night long. The mids are nice on the divas but I think that was the strength of the Paradigms, I am actually a little disappointed in the 6.1's mids as I heard that was the main reason to get the 6.1's. I will concur with some other posts that the bass is lacking from the 6.1's, but it was similar to the Paradigm's so maybe my expectations were off, the RF-7 has the best bass of these I checked out. I do have dual SVS subs so I know I will have plenty of low end. The soundstage was very well reproduced with wideness and blended very well. All in all these are great speakers but would rate second to the Paradigms.
C3-I received the new C3 and I could not be happier with the sound. I put this center thru the rigors with Blue Man Group and I was overwhelmed with its ability to reproduce mids and highs, even the bass extended very well so that was a plus. The only negative I noticed was on deep voices sometimes the reproduction was a little off, but that was so minimal for me. The C3 IMO is the best speaker in the set.
R3-Again I am very impressed with the speaker. For one the looks just add to the room. I did some surround testing with U-571(I love the popping bolts) and using my DD Demo disk I found that these dipole speakers just added to my HT experience. I also played some DVD-Audio tracks and thought that the timbre match the front soundstage as well as could be. I am very happy with these rears, sometimes the rears are overlooked by speaker companies and with multichannel music this is an important speaker.
In review I am happy with this set of speakers. Everything about them says expensive except the price is not, which for me was $2200. You will not find a better 5 speaker set for that amount, here were the other three speakers as a package that I was looking at,
Martin Logans-$5700
Klipcsh RF-7, C7,R7-$3100
Paradigms 100's, center, rear dipoles's-3,300
As you can see I would have had to pay as much as $900 more for a complete package that is not any better. I cannot say the 6.1's blew any of these away, just that it hung with all three on the mains and bested the center and rears.
I would like to add that two things, I have not broke these speakers in for 100 hours as most recommend(although how much mid and bass could that add) and when I demoed the other speakers I was using Parasound and Krell amps that are not in my system.
Greg
My previous speakers were two JBL tower speakers(circa 1992), a cheap JBL center and two JBL N24 rear speakers.
6.1-Obviously I have only about 15 hours on these speakers so they are not yet broke in. I would agree with everyone that the looks of these speakers are awesome. They have a elegance about them that says "look at me I am so marvalous". The wood on mine was darker than when I demoed them and the pattern was tighter. Unfortunately the wood does not exactly match the center and rear speakers but it does not look bad either. The top mounted tweeter adds to the elegant feel of the speakers and my initial feeling is I would rather have the C3 for the same look. I demoed the following speakers before buying the Divas, Paradigm 100's, Klipsch RF-7's, and Martin Logan Aeon's. I thought that Paradigms were the most complete speaker of the three so I will compare the Divas to them. The 6.1's absolutely kick but on the high's and for me was one of the strengths of the speaker. The Paradigms were bright and fatiguing, while I could listen to the smoothness of the Divas all night long. The mids are nice on the divas but I think that was the strength of the Paradigms, I am actually a little disappointed in the 6.1's mids as I heard that was the main reason to get the 6.1's. I will concur with some other posts that the bass is lacking from the 6.1's, but it was similar to the Paradigm's so maybe my expectations were off, the RF-7 has the best bass of these I checked out. I do have dual SVS subs so I know I will have plenty of low end. The soundstage was very well reproduced with wideness and blended very well. All in all these are great speakers but would rate second to the Paradigms.
C3-I received the new C3 and I could not be happier with the sound. I put this center thru the rigors with Blue Man Group and I was overwhelmed with its ability to reproduce mids and highs, even the bass extended very well so that was a plus. The only negative I noticed was on deep voices sometimes the reproduction was a little off, but that was so minimal for me. The C3 IMO is the best speaker in the set.
R3-Again I am very impressed with the speaker. For one the looks just add to the room. I did some surround testing with U-571(I love the popping bolts) and using my DD Demo disk I found that these dipole speakers just added to my HT experience. I also played some DVD-Audio tracks and thought that the timbre match the front soundstage as well as could be. I am very happy with these rears, sometimes the rears are overlooked by speaker companies and with multichannel music this is an important speaker.
In review I am happy with this set of speakers. Everything about them says expensive except the price is not, which for me was $2200. You will not find a better 5 speaker set for that amount, here were the other three speakers as a package that I was looking at,
Martin Logans-$5700
Klipcsh RF-7, C7,R7-$3100
Paradigms 100's, center, rear dipoles's-3,300
As you can see I would have had to pay as much as $900 more for a complete package that is not any better. I cannot say the 6.1's blew any of these away, just that it hung with all three on the mains and bested the center and rears.
I would like to add that two things, I have not broke these speakers in for 100 hours as most recommend(although how much mid and bass could that add) and when I demoed the other speakers I was using Parasound and Krell amps that are not in my system.
Greg
