Column

Something befitting a Douglas Adams novel occurred during my first week with the Gibbon 3s. My daughter decided to play elevator with one set of the drivers and did so during the Sabbath in plain view of my wife, six invited guests, and me. She wasn’t content with pushing the up button. Everything seemed to slow down and zoom in on my facial expression (which I can assure you was not “Holy S@!%, We just won the MegaMillions!” My limbs started to swell, as did the large vein that runs across my forehead. I’m not sure what the Hitchhiker’s Guide says about having an aneurysm, but I’m pretty sure I experienced a silent one). 

John DeVore was cool about the entire episode and while I was at his Brooklyn Navy Yard factory, he taught me a few things about tea consumption that I didn’t know.

Gotta love the tea timer. Call me a Philistine, but I always thought it was proper to keep the bag submerged until it stopped getting any darker. 

Just lose the Star Trek mug, John. I’ll let you keep my prized Boba Fett one if you just let it go.

Space…(crafty segue)

Why do people buy monitors for home use?

Lack of space, of course. North Americans have so much of it in comparison to the rest of the world. 

It’s certainly not because they are cheap because if you take a look at some of the more impressive loudspeakers from such compnaies as Spendor, JM Reynaud, Sonus Faber, Reference 3a or Totem that qualify as 2-way monitors, none of them would be considered affordable by the majority of the planet.

There is a second tier of monitors from companies such as NHT, Paradigm, Energy, Omega, and PSB that offers a lot of bang for the buck, even if a certain segment of audio-la-la-land don’t find them to be on the same “level”. I’ve owned 2-way monitors from both camps and in fact, still do.

Spouses love them because they don’t have to see them. They can be placed on shelves, or even mantles where Santa’s Little Helper or Morris can’t reach them (granted, I’ve seen some cats take some crazy leaps in some homes to get their claws into those inviting grilles). Audiophiles are the only people I know who have monitors set-up on expensive stands in the middle of a room. Most of those people have either sold their children to the circus, or never had any of their own. 

The problem of course, is that you give up one of the primary benefits of a pair of quality 2-way monitors by sticking them on a shelf: That whole imaging/soundstage thing. Those of us who don’t lose sleep over a pair of loudspeakers that are not reference quality in that regard still get a kick out of hearing Ella or Sam stand before us every now and then. Personally, I only care that it sounds like them – sweat, booze, tormented soul et al.

The other issue, and this is certainly a generalization because there are monitors such as the Reference 3a and Omega that are very easy to drive, is that most high-end monitors require some juice to really open up and let you hear just much authority they have. In my experience with monitors, it generally takes more than a 45 or 300B to make them sing. Push-pull designs using EL34/EL84s are a good starting point.