I'm so impressed with these speakers it's not even funny. First let me be clear. These are not really my type of speakers at all. I'm a big speaker guy, and more into high sensitivity/efficiency myself. But if I had the money. I would definitely try these nonetheless. I mean talk about "Hot Rodded"!!!
As a guy who got back into audio just about a year ago when I built myself a car stereo for the first time in about 20 years. And as a person who feels the best way to get the most bang for your buck is research, research, research. I've spent the last year doing just that. Learning. Mostly about speakers.
Unfortunately after I got the car stereo installed. The transmission went (on a Toyota with low miles!), because of unfortunate circumstances that were not my doing. So the car stereo game is done for me for now, and maybe forever. I don't have the patience or time to do it again.
But it got me back into home stereo too. For which I forever grateful. "When one door closes. Another opens". And it got me into learning about speaker building. I've learned so much about this stuff in the past year it's crazy. See when you build a good car stereo. To do it right. You're basically building a pair of speakers. Only more complicated then that. And the hot setup in cars is "active". So while I wasn't learning about passive crossovers. I was learning about all the essentials.
Now that I've switched over to home HiFi, and have been learning about real speaker building too at places like the Parts Express forum. I can certainly recognize when I see the hand built, and customized 1971 Corvette LS6 4 speed of Monitor Speakers. And trust me these are it.
Everything from the cabinet designed to reduce diffraction. From the parts, and design of the crossovers. The choice of drivers. To the waveguide on the tweeter, which already has a low resonant frequency, so he can crossover as low as possible (remember a 6.5" woofer will transition from omni to directional around 1kHz, and will "supposedly" start to "beam" around 2khz, or so), yet it's a 3/4 inch to increase off axis response/reduce beaming. What that means is. If you put these in your bar. No matter where people are. They'll be getting basically a flat frequency response with little treble roll off, and no dip in the midrange. Or that you can walk around your room and not lose the sweet spot. The are very well designed.
Someone asked about the 87db sensitivity. That's actually very impressive (high) considering the bass response on these. See Iron's Law to understand why. The fact that these go into the 30's, and still have that high of a sensitivity is very impressive indeed. Those are tower speaker numbers right there. I don't think people can even remotely understand just how good these are. The Kef LS 50 is basically the "bar" in this price range for this type of speaker. I haven't heard them, or these. But spec wise. These destroy the LS 50. They require a sub too, and these have zero need.
Everything he's done with these are Hot Rodded. These are speakers guys dream about building someday if they ever get the time, money, and tools. The amount of time, and money it would take to build these is ridiculous. You would need so many tools, and so much testing equipment to get these right that's it's not remotely worth it, unless you plan on building many speakers. You couldn't possibly start from scratch, and hand build speakers like this yourself for this kind of money, unless you already had the tools and testing equipment on hand. Or you had a friend who did.
And even then. You couldn't overcome the lack of experience to make them sound nearly as good. It would just be a bunch of parts with no harmony. This has got to be the best deal out there in audio right now. Yes maybe there's better performers. But I assure you. Not anywhere near this price. And these are designed by someone. Not by someone using a computer to direct a crew, but isn't actually involved in the process per say. Which is how it's done nowadays. Ala Andrew Jones.
Now mind you. I haven't heard these yet, but I already know from past experience that they sound great. My cuppa? I don't know till I hear them. But they're one of the few new speakers I would even consider. And the fact they go so low. They might be the only small speaker I would consider with, or without a sub. These are very impressive to say the least. He's left no stone unturned. Believe me. I know.
As for the name, because someone asked, it's an Irish thing. Brian, like me (my family is from County Cork), must be Irish. He explains it on his website. The naming thing I mean.
Good job Brian. Good f@cking job man! God bless, and good luck.
Andy B.