Posted by Greggo [ 71.90.236.253 ] on October 27, 2006 at 21:40:31:

In Reply to: Rocky Mountain Show posted by slinco on October 24, 2006 at 11:24:53:

OK, I was there and gave them a good listen a couple of times. I have no established basis for credibility with any of this group, but perhaps my comments will be better than nothing for those who are curious and did not have the chance to hear them.

First off, I will admit that I heard no obvious combfiltering effects, at least nothing that sounded like a rough upper end response with wild dips all over the place. Now of interest, I believe I have read, and would love for Dr. Griffin to comment here, that comb filtering mostly shows up as massive dips at very specific and mostly narrow frequency ranges, many to be sure, but mostly dips and not artificial peaks. I have also read in numerous places that when a driver has a narrow dip somewhere in its range that it is much less noticeable than a peak for some reason. Perhaps, if what I have written above is at least in the ballpark of reality, that is why comb filtering does not irritate us as much "in room" as it does the more informed among us "on paper".

Having said all that, I was not impressed with the IDS25. If I was given a mansion with ten listening rooms and allowed to pick ten systems from this past RMAF to place in each of them, I personally would no select the IDS25 as one of those top ten systems. I will not, however, be surprised if others disagree because there were some things that these speakers did spectacularly well. Here are my own pros/cons from my listening sessions:

Pros:

An obvious dynamic range that just slaps you upside the head and screams "you hear this buddy, this is real dynamic range compared to that other stuff you have been listening to...."

A cleanliness to the sound that is very appealing, call it low distortion, call it lack of crossover, call it many drivers coupling themselves to the air space in the room, call it cylindical radiation, whatever.... more than just dynamics, there was a crystal clear quality throughout most of the range that was very, very appealing.

Transient snap (not sure if that is the best pair of terms here...), or some type of quality that makes you feel like these little speakers speak quickly, and just let go of the notes so fast that everything seems to float a few feet out from the baffles and not exactly eminate directly from the cones/baffles, this quality really stuck me when hearing the percussion parts on recordings, one of the best of the show in this regard

Vocals, for the most part, where scary good, with a real clear window, and make that a big beautiful picture window, letting you see the face, lips, teeth and tongue of every singer, and even giving you a sense of their lungs and how much air was being pushed out and at the same time left in reserve with each note sung. Honestly, my reaction to some vocals on the IDS25 versus other very good speakers was like going from 720p on a good video projector to true 1080p, just when you thought you really knew what High Definition was someone comes along and gives you just a bit more. Not more of a jump than when going from SD to HD, but still a noticeable jump nonetheless.

Cons:

As much as I loved the clear quality of most of the full range of music, just like there was something new and better in the range where others have a crossover, there seemed to be something slightly better to be found in others with real woofers and real tweeters. Not sure if what I heard had anything to do with comb filtering, the quality of the drivers, or the affects of havey EQ, or some comination of all of the above, but I did find that the frequency extremes had a slightly artificial quality to them that I just couldn't get past. I am comletely open to the idea that this is part of my own subjective bias more so than any faults of the IDS25, but I can't get it out of my head that I am convinced something has gone somewhat astray at both ends.

Though the imaging in general was very reasonable and sometimes better, I thought everything sounded bigger than it should, including vocals which in some cases sounded to me like they were being sung by giants. Some instrumental tracks, though granted I was not familiar with them, but at times I felt disconnected from the physical size and structure of the instruments and/or recording space.

Conclusion - I would not throw these speakers out of my house, no doubt, and in fact for many of my own discs/records I would be having a blast and calling all my friends up to come have a listen to something that I was sure would blow them away. But at the end of the day, I would long for speakers that bring me a bit closer to the other things I value.

Regards,

Greg Jensen

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