Jason, Be careful getting me started. I’m over-excited right now!!. I’d bring the whole Outlaw community home to play if I could…. except you’d be sitting on top of each other. Tiny house-big toys. (My house is the 60 yr. old cottage era, purchased for location…most peoples apartments are bigger…you’d die laughing)

Actually the center speaker alone just about cost as much as the whole 7.1 Def Tech. setup. And yes I picked it up last night, they had to get the center in from another warehouse. The model on the center is the ‘Maestro’ I need to look up the specs on it. The center channels have a different set of names than the model lines of the fronts. No, maybe it’s the room dimensions but off-axis response is fine. In fact these 3 are handling the room size drawback beautifully which is a necessary evil with some seating….if the whole gang and friends tromp in, can be one chair right next to the left front and practically vice-versa on the right, and the sound (though heavily weighted) in those seats, still is not bad at all…..

These things have SUCH a beautiful voice and do not seem as sensitive to placement as the limited choices I demo’d.

I am weird but when I shopped one of my buying criteria was a speaker’s sensitivity to placement because I know I’m so limited in this room. (I asked permission first) with all speakers in the floorstander class; I moved around the room quite a bit up close, and toed them in more (even tried toe out really messing with), moved them a little closer if they had a lot of separation and generally just messed around, to see how dependent they were on placement. I found the Sonus Grand Piano’s to be particularly sensitive here. The soundstage disappeared very quickly when you moved them around to minor degrees. And I found the Martin Logan’s to be flat (to me) in the mid-range. (not compared to my old set but as compared to, - comparably priced) I am ultra-picky about how a speaker handles reproduction of Grand piano octaves, and on speakers capable of really producing the detail, there is a certain depth and resonance to each note I was looking for. The sound of these Beethoven’s on a bass string pluck or a harp!!!!!!!! And their response time (I think it’s called decay and attack) to my ears…close to perfect, or at least the best I’ve heard to date. Human voices –fantastic. And the detail…I can hear when the lips stick together for a second when the vocalist takes a breath.

I looked up speaker reviews on these after I bought them and found that their highs were often described as ‘sweet’. It did not surprise me when I read this because ANY edge to a tweeter gets me. (The Def Tech’s handled it better than many in their class but still wore me out). However personally I really would not describe these as ‘sweet’ I just don’t feel they color the sound in the highs at all…I think it’s an absolute lack of any harshness or stridency in the tweeter that makes them incredibly smooth and easy on the ear.
In comparison to anything with a hint of metallica it would appear ‘sweet’.

The sub, prob is not up to the Viennas’ ummmm, nope my husband would kill me. I have promised to be good (and satisfied for awhile).
He’s letting me get away with this because I don’t normally do stuff like this (I’m usually an easy keeper )…When we picked up the center last night…they said ‘Come back soon’, - he laughed and told them we would NOT be back for awhile.

I’m going to run the Def Tech Cinema Pro 100’s with the Def Tech sub I already own for the HT side. I was wondering if they could keep up and actually they are not at all bad with the Beethoveen’s. Of course the beethovens are so saturated with detail (a new and wonderous world has appeared in my living room) who cares what’s going on in the surrounds! (But really they are blending well)
The Beethovens were so utterly fantastic out of the box just plopped down, I can’t wait to find time to play with tweaking everything. I did a quick calibration (and believe me these things can handle being out of calibration better than the Def Tech’s….) Screwed that up the first time…(I’ll tell that story as a warning latter if someone else calibrates in a hurry like I did).

What I’d like to ask for from the forum, since we decided to skip DIY for a couple of years, (when I looked the knowledge accumulation necessary to attempt to do justice to the parts I wanted to buy was beyond our time constraints for now). I would like to learn about phase between the mains and the sub (total lack there) and the specifics about understanding crossovers and frequency rolloffs. I looked late last night and when I queried just ran into specific stats posted on specific speakers. I need to find some good links to the general topics of and understanding of…Know any??

PS: Although the sales and I were talking that some of the amp setups on these speakers did not do them justice….The Outlaw setup…..(I KID not) gets more out of the Beethoven’s than the Demo room with the Pioneer and B&K.

Hi Norman,...just saw your post too...yep you scared me off building my own for the moment Thanks to ALL for the cross-over help, I'm going to tweak heaven this weekend. Any advice please - always let me know...I'm in constant 'learning mode'.


[This message has been edited by Smart Little Lena (edited November 05, 2002).]