I am going to give you my impressions of the summoner floor standers and the centre speaker I bought from Edward at Adelaide Speakers

My source is and XE-1 and my amp is a Denon 1802. The XE-1 is connected via 5.1 analogue and stereo analogue to my amp so all decoding is being done inside theXE-1. I have chosen this way so I can enjoy the hi res audio from HD-DVD, also the DAC’s inside the XE-1 are superior to that of the Denon for CD play back.

Build quality is very, very good. The finish is very good. They are black but you can still see the grin of the wood, just. They are quite heavy. The gold spikes on the front to tilt them back slightly is a nice touch. Overall a very attractive speaker.

My room has polished floors, only one 2 seater sofa and a couple of book shelves, so as you can imagine it is quite bare. I will tell you now it is a bright room that I have to tame. Some rugs and another bookshelf on the back wall is my first step. You need to know this as it would help explain the only minor negative I have found.

When I first connected them I noticed a clear and crisp mid response, something that my small bookshelves did not do well at all. With my old set up I always felt something was missing in this area and these new speakers filled that hole. Very happy. Vocals from music and movies seemed to stand out and was clearer.

Bass response from these beauties is amazing. I have listened to music and have experimented turning my sub on and of to see how much difference it makes. My sub is an SVS PB10-ISD, this is a sub that is flat to 20hz. (I should write a review on that because it blows me away when I actually feel the bass hit my chest, thanks AJM. ) With music and the sub on you have a little more volume in the low frequencies, with the sub off you still get the lows but they seem cleaner and more defined but with a little less oomph. I hope that makes sense. I am still experimenting but I prefer the sub on most of the time.

Now to the centre speaker in conjunction with the mains. The centre speaker has the same mid range driver and tweeter as the mains, this was my request as I wanted continuity across the front sound stage.

At first I thought there was something amiss as the dialogue seemed different, wrong in fact. The more movies I watched the more I realised that I was hearing what I was supposed to hear. I will give you an example. You can actually distinguish the type of surroundings and what type of room the actors are in. If there is supposed to be an echo you hear it, if they are out in the open it sounds different again. With my old set up they were just voices. As you can imagine this adds a great deal to the ambience and emotion of the movie.


My daughter was watching Tinkerbell, they flew through a valley and you could hear the echo, when they came out the echo disappeared. I was amazed, I have never noticed details like that before. In the LOTR The Two Towers where Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas are surrounded by the horses and they are given two to ride, I heard the horses breath just to the right of me, the horses are just out of the scene but the breath put them there. I have never noticed this before and I have watched that movie a lot.

The imaging and panning effects in the movies I have watched are cleaner and more defined. Cars, bullets, dogs, insects, birds, etc are all there, I love the little ambient noises they put in the movies to draw you into a scene or environment. These speakers deliver in that department very well.

Now the only minor negative and this is being ultra critical. I did mention to Edward when I listened to them at his place that I felt the high frequencies were a little forward for my liking and asked him if they would settle down in time. He said they would but he was quite happy to adjust the cross over for me if I liked. I decided to leave it alone and get them back to my place and see how they sounded in my room.

Don’t get me wrong the highs were not harsh, nor did they sound bad just a little forward compared to the mid and bass. When I treat my room as mentioned above and replace my amp I am sure this very, very minor issue will be sorted out. I have to say these are the most balanced speakers I have heard in this price range and up to about $2500.

I am very happy with these three speakers and am amazed at there performance compared to there price. I would think you would have to spend three times what I payed for these to get a step up in sound quality. Three high quality great sounding speakers for just over a grand, amazing. I can’t wait to upgrade my amp as I feel this is the weak point in chain.

I hope this all makes sense. I have tried to give an unbiased opinion of my new toys. Feel free to fire any questions at me and I will answer them the best I can.

Images here.

http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtop...=0#entry1222483

Regards

Daywalker

Good to hear such praise Daywalker ; my 8892's are seamless too with my center even though Edward had to match ribbons with cone midranges . When I mentioned spikes to Edward he said they werent necessary [ due to the weight and the carpet on a concrete slab ]. Should help with the decoupling in your case though ;not to mention the tweeter being on axis to your seated ear level.

The transmission line models make you think twice about your sub for sure ; mine isnt flat to 20[more like 25] but the TL has such a controlled rolloff Edward suggested it wasnt needed .As your speakers are barely run in the suspensions will have a bit of give hopefully and mellow out a little . Time to go through your favourite recordings ...

Very nice review and fantastic to see your enjoying them so much, Edward really does seem to do a great job at producing fine speakers. I'll have mine by the weekend and after hearing what you had to say I'm even more excited dang it.