Well, the Missions have just sounded so good on the shelves laying on their sides, my interest in improving them has waned significantly. They're an excellent match to the MA6200 - but then again, I've not found a pair of speakers yet the MA6200 didn't just own. Damn good integrated. You walk into shipping / receiving and you're just greeted with excellent sound. Amazing to me that we were unable to achieve that with the speakers mounted upright . . . but there it is.
On to the 901s . . . we have a serious problem, and I do mean serious. I'll walk out into the shop and hear something in a song that I've just never heard before. This hasn't happened once or twice, it happens nearly every time I go out there. For example, I never really thought much about the Aerosmith song Jamie's Got a Gun or the production of that song even - it just always struck me as meh. But there I am in the shop thinking - man, that bass line is just over the top, how in the hell have I not noticed that before? For the first time ever, I was like this is a killer song! And when you walk around, you truly have excellent sound in nearly any spot you may work. There are a few hot spots for the bass but that's to be expected. As the speakers reflect off of the walls behind them there are no unpleasant spots to be standing in as there would be if you were standing directly in the line of fire for a traditional loudspeaker. That can be very fatiguing. Ceiling speakers designed with off-axis response can pull that off as well. But, these 901s - you really can have it all, or most of it anyway.
Nothing makes me happier than to go out into the shop and the youngsters have some Pop 2k or something like that on and the place is just hoppin' to Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, or Taylor Swift. Not really my genre, but that's OK. Some of the songs on these channels they like to stream have tons of bass. And man do those 901s dish it up in spades. They do well with all kinds of bass as well - Katy Perry's Dark Horse has a really unique bass line and the 901s were just gettin' it done. Crazy. One day, my production manager was turnin' the youngsters onto the OG rap and hip-hop that he listened to in his Nissan hardbody BITD . . . Sir Mix-Alot, Tupac, 2 Live Crew, etc. That **** was so loud I could hear it 500ft awy in my office. I had to walk out into the shop just to hear it. I was just wide eyed and slack jawed - how in the hell can a speaker comprised purely of 4" full range driver do that? How is that even possible? The staff doesn't care, they just freakin' love it.
Folks who bag on 901s have clearly missed the genius behind them. I like them so much it's coloring my opinion of other speakers that I hold in very high esteem. Who knows, maybe I fell and bumped my head . . . I dunno.
Saturdays we typically stream The Bridge - us old folks enjoy it. ELP's From the Beginning came on . . . again, just stellar. Paul Simon, Supertramp, Fleetwood Mac - just all served up exactly like you would want to hear those songs. The icing on the cake is hearing a song you really like just come to life in this massive space and then leaning on the volume control. Watching a pair of MC2500s banging the meters to the 50wpc marks is a sight to behold. I've not yet had the inclination to play the system any louder than that as you can really feel the pressure on your ears after 5 minutes of that.
As the summer gives way to the cooler weather here, I'm anxiously awaiting the audio upgrades in the garage and outdoors. I'm actually looking for another pair of 901s for the patio as we speak. I can park them way back out of harms way, fly them overhead, and bam. I've got (2) more 2500s and (2) 2300s waiting to be called into action . . . I can't wait.
