Froggy5326
Active Member
Could not be more jazzed. I inherited a set of aging and disabled Type Aii Snells from my father who passed away this year. Lots of deferred maintenance, woofers were shot, grilles were worse.
They sound and look amazing after restoration, but were just not the right speakers for my listening style and preferences. I listen to primarily classic rock, and prefer at live volumes. It seemed like every single time I was showing off the system yielded a phone call to Atomic Hifi and new drivers. Just too much power going to them and asking too much from some extraordinarily symphonic speakers. That said, they sounded incredible right up until they didn't.
My wife knew I wanted to stay in the Snell family for nostalgic reasons, and as a tribute to Dad. I had found a set of these Type A5 Reference for sale, and though careful shipping cross-country was nightmarish at 750# for five boxes, she bought me these for Christmas this year.
Finally have the system 85% dialed in and am absolutely blown away. The bass speakers are absolutely intense. I have never heard so much subsonic content before in my life short of a great movie theatre. Amazed by how much of this super low bass there is in movies... not so much in music obviously. There is just this pulsing, chugging intense pressure wave coming through dark dialogue scenes in most Star Wars and action movies, and even transitions in dramas are incorporating these deep tones.
In short, I have never heard their equal (in a home) and with the exception of live sound reinforcement at a concert or the like, can’t imagine it. Absolutely intense reproduction at live music venue volumes (105+ dB) with extraordinary sonic clarity.
Need more amp. The towers are clipping my Adcom GFA-555ii dedicated to them and you can hear the lack of headroom. As an 8 ohm speaker, that cut my available wattage in half from the 4 ohm Aii system. The 18" subs are content as hell running parallel at 4ohm summed mono and 800 wpc, but I am looking to make it stereo on the low end, so will likely be buying a larger woofer amp to try and get them 400 wpc and leave each 555ii for the towers which will likely have way more overhead than I can use at 625wpc each. As money permits, I will probably be swapping all of them out for Parasound units, as I've become a big John Curl fan and have loved all that I have heard.
Several people on here gave resounding approval of these speakers, and it is greatly appreciated. I am done looking for speakers I think. It is no longer my weakest link. I went from LaScala's to the Aii and definitely preferred the Snells, though not the volume.
For those interested here is the rest of the system, the vinyl source is an Oracle Delphi MKii, PS Audio MC pre-preamp, Audio Research tube preamp (I use only on the vinyl phono stage... sounds better than the Marantz), Marantz AV7705 Pre/Pro, Adcom GFA-555ii power amps for 2.0 audio, Adcom GFA-7500 5 channel for the surround (AR D-40 isn't used).
Kevin Voecks was onto something with these. Pity the big speakers all kind of went away.
They sound and look amazing after restoration, but were just not the right speakers for my listening style and preferences. I listen to primarily classic rock, and prefer at live volumes. It seemed like every single time I was showing off the system yielded a phone call to Atomic Hifi and new drivers. Just too much power going to them and asking too much from some extraordinarily symphonic speakers. That said, they sounded incredible right up until they didn't.
My wife knew I wanted to stay in the Snell family for nostalgic reasons, and as a tribute to Dad. I had found a set of these Type A5 Reference for sale, and though careful shipping cross-country was nightmarish at 750# for five boxes, she bought me these for Christmas this year.
Finally have the system 85% dialed in and am absolutely blown away. The bass speakers are absolutely intense. I have never heard so much subsonic content before in my life short of a great movie theatre. Amazed by how much of this super low bass there is in movies... not so much in music obviously. There is just this pulsing, chugging intense pressure wave coming through dark dialogue scenes in most Star Wars and action movies, and even transitions in dramas are incorporating these deep tones.
In short, I have never heard their equal (in a home) and with the exception of live sound reinforcement at a concert or the like, can’t imagine it. Absolutely intense reproduction at live music venue volumes (105+ dB) with extraordinary sonic clarity.
Need more amp. The towers are clipping my Adcom GFA-555ii dedicated to them and you can hear the lack of headroom. As an 8 ohm speaker, that cut my available wattage in half from the 4 ohm Aii system. The 18" subs are content as hell running parallel at 4ohm summed mono and 800 wpc, but I am looking to make it stereo on the low end, so will likely be buying a larger woofer amp to try and get them 400 wpc and leave each 555ii for the towers which will likely have way more overhead than I can use at 625wpc each. As money permits, I will probably be swapping all of them out for Parasound units, as I've become a big John Curl fan and have loved all that I have heard.
Several people on here gave resounding approval of these speakers, and it is greatly appreciated. I am done looking for speakers I think. It is no longer my weakest link. I went from LaScala's to the Aii and definitely preferred the Snells, though not the volume.
For those interested here is the rest of the system, the vinyl source is an Oracle Delphi MKii, PS Audio MC pre-preamp, Audio Research tube preamp (I use only on the vinyl phono stage... sounds better than the Marantz), Marantz AV7705 Pre/Pro, Adcom GFA-555ii power amps for 2.0 audio, Adcom GFA-7500 5 channel for the surround (AR D-40 isn't used).
Kevin Voecks was onto something with these. Pity the big speakers all kind of went away.
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