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--HT8's-- I'll cut to the chase. I bought the HT8's. Somewhat bigger than the HT'3s, but still very small for the amount of sound they give out, these were just the perfect balance of size/performance.
Utterly effortless giant soundstage. These ribbon tweeters are a marvel, the sweetspot is so massive - you can walk towards the speakers and the center image stays until you're practically in the middle between them. The lateral off-axis response of the tweeters is ridiculous, but they don't have as high a vertical dispersion, so if you're tall and standing, you can get outside of them when you're close. Tight controlled musical bass, and that airy dynamic midrange. I heard things in the music i brought that i previously hadn't before. Slight distortion on some of the sounds, different amounts of compression on elements in the recording. Very exposing, but not in a dry way like, say, planar speakers can be, they just were extremely accurate. Their higher sensitivity than the HT3's at 88dB - was a contributing element to my decision because i'll use tube amps for quiet listening. The were just -more- than the HT3's, and they should be. The extra midrange in the d'appolito config does add substance to the midrange, and theoretically a larger sweetspot.
One interesting aspect of the HT3 and HT8, with the side firing extremis bass, is that you can configure them in different ways to control room response. Al informed me that having the drivers on the outside facing the wall will couple the room/corners more adding significantly to the low end response. Switching the speakers will minimize that. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide. That's a cool option for when you might be in an apartment, but want the scalability of you move to a house, or have a party, etc. etc.
For me the HT8 was the perfect price/size/performance choice.
Initially, i was planning to get the Apex II's, but after seeing their size, and hearing that the differences between the HT8's and them were noticeable but not significant enough when i considered the size (to me) the HT8's got the vote. I got the upgraded capacitor option for the mid ranges, also feeling that was a good price/performance stance.
Adam (http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/index.php?topic=29885.0) |
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