Chip P.
Ex Member
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All right, here's my best attempt at a very non-expert review -- or better yet, here's an update of the radials as they continue to break in at my house. I'd imagine that I've got about 100 hours on them by now as a conservative estimate.
The woodwork (maple in my case) was beautifully done by Ziggy and although I was prepared for an extended and painful break in period, the speakers sounded very good out of the box. I do hear an improvement over time, for example, the sound has smoothed out a little and is a little more relaxed now -- not laid back -- just more like the driver is getting more accustomed to doing what it's supposed to do and doing it with less effort if that makes sense...
It is very difficult to describe the sound of the radials. My previous pair of speakers were Omega TS2R's, a smaller box speaker built by Louis Chuchos, a heck of a nice guy who makes some pretty good speakers with pretty high quality craftmanship. Well, no offense to Louis, but the radials, in my system, are just in a completely different league. The best way I can sum it up is to say that the Omegas presented what I thought was a very accurate, detailed sound which I enjoyed. But the radials yield an entirely different level of realism -- there is a "trueness" to the sound that goes well beyond mere accuracy.
The depth, resonance, and fullness of individual instruments reaches a level with these speakers that is really astonishing. I recall Lon once referring to a system that he'd heard as "hyper-real" or something like that - and after hearing the radials, I can understand what he meant. There is an autheticity to the sound of the radials that is really special. I've heard alot of high end speakers that sound very good, but never let you forget that you're listening to a high end speaker. The radials are not like this at all. My musical tastes run the gamut, with a heavy concentration in jazz and blues, but I can't seem to get the acoustic guitar recordings out of my cd player - that's how good they sound. I had the day off today and spent the afternoon listening to Leo Kottke and John Redbourn discs and the sound just drenches the entire room. I should note that my listening room is my living room - probably 15 x 20 -- with hardwood floors, glass on the front and back walls and all sorts of other issues that make the room less than optimal -- still the radials disappear and image in this room without a problem and better than any other speaker I've ever had. Others in my household are also duly impressed, which I can assure is no small feat.
Needless to say, I am extremely pleased with the radials, and all of the Decware products in my system. A year ago I'd never owned a tube component -- slowly but surely I've begged, borrowed and traded my way into a system that reproduces music in a way I did not think my system could get to [with much thanks to all those who helped along the way.] There's still a couple holes to be filled down the road, but I'm one satisfied listener these days. I will hopefully continue to provide more updates as the speakers get more hours. Chip
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