Was at a mate's last night in London - admittedly by the time we got there we were a little merry - he had a pair of Monopulse Model As powered by some Croft hybrid integrated amp. Source was a bog standard Marantz CD - he said it was old and cheap.
OK, it's a large loft style apartment, brick walls, wooden floors, very little furnishing (he's a banker, what can I say) - so essentially a pretty difficult listening environment I would imagine. Speakers probably a good 8 metres apart, at least 2 metres out from the walls behind and to either side. The whole room very square, about 10 metres by at least 12 metres. No idea whatsoever about cables or interconnects.
But hell did this sound good. We listened to all sorts of stuff - folk, electronica, Elvis, metal. WOW WOW WOW! Music just flying around all over the place, no idea what was coming from where - like nothing I've ever heard.
OK, so you're thinking this is the party juice inside us all - well, we relistened to a stack of stuff all this morning, and sober it was still UTTERLY AMAZING. A soundstage and stereo imaging like I've never heard - at low volumes pretty good, but the louder it got (and boy did it get loud) it was even better. Perhaps unsurprisingly.
He reckoned he'd got the amp and speakers for just under £2k - think the speakers were 2nd hand, amp was new. Source and cables all in he might have spent £2.5k.
In short, this was about as good as I can imagine ever wanting anything. My new house has a room with a similar sized room, but with weird roof angles that will probably give very different acoustics. I've heard (I mean read) a lot of people saying you can't beat the AVI 9s for value - but I think this was probably similar money (if you include the AVI sub) and frankly this completely blew away the AVIs that I auditioned.
Not sure what my point is - anyone else heard the Monopulses with or without the Croft, or vice-versa? I'm not sure which component was providing the magic, or if it was just synergy or just a combo of very high quality products.
Anyway, was a bit green - happy with my moderate set ups, but that was AMAZING!
OK, it's a large loft style apartment, brick walls, wooden floors, very little furnishing (he's a banker, what can I say) - so essentially a pretty difficult listening environment I would imagine. Speakers probably a good 8 metres apart, at least 2 metres out from the walls behind and to either side. The whole room very square, about 10 metres by at least 12 metres. No idea whatsoever about cables or interconnects.
But hell did this sound good. We listened to all sorts of stuff - folk, electronica, Elvis, metal. WOW WOW WOW! Music just flying around all over the place, no idea what was coming from where - like nothing I've ever heard.
OK, so you're thinking this is the party juice inside us all - well, we relistened to a stack of stuff all this morning, and sober it was still UTTERLY AMAZING. A soundstage and stereo imaging like I've never heard - at low volumes pretty good, but the louder it got (and boy did it get loud) it was even better. Perhaps unsurprisingly.
He reckoned he'd got the amp and speakers for just under £2k - think the speakers were 2nd hand, amp was new. Source and cables all in he might have spent £2.5k.
In short, this was about as good as I can imagine ever wanting anything. My new house has a room with a similar sized room, but with weird roof angles that will probably give very different acoustics. I've heard (I mean read) a lot of people saying you can't beat the AVI 9s for value - but I think this was probably similar money (if you include the AVI sub) and frankly this completely blew away the AVIs that I auditioned.
Not sure what my point is - anyone else heard the Monopulses with or without the Croft, or vice-versa? I'm not sure which component was providing the magic, or if it was just synergy or just a combo of very high quality products.
Anyway, was a bit green - happy with my moderate set ups, but that was AMAZING!
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