Thursday, October 30, 2008

In Memory of the Snell A series

Today I found a person on Audiogon selling his Snell A2's near me for only $500. I hope he doesn't mind if I steal his picture, if I help him sell these wonderful loudspeakers. I really really wish I could buy them but I have absolutely no place in my house to put them (and my gf tells me she'd kill me).

At $500 with new woofers these speakers are a total steal, even if for only one reason. What the Snell A series speakers have done better than ANY speaker I've ever listened to is that their bass response sounds equally amazing no matter the room you put them in. This particular ability, to perform equally well in a small room or large I've just never heard replicated.

The Snell A's had bass that was awesome, limitless, and not fussy. Any room you put them in, the bass was just, breathtaking. I don't mean that they were scary, or goosebump raising, which they could be, but instead what I mean is that listening to them you felt as if the room, the speakers, the air in your lungs were all somehow coupled together and that the Snells could suck the air right out of your lungs if they tried. And in addition to all that, they felt utterly and completely balanced and real without ever feeling heavy, or offensive, as many large speakers can sound. You can get more bass from something like the large Wilsons, and several of the current super-subsoofers out there today but you can't put most of them into an average sized living room without sounding bad.

If you imagine the best midrange from an electrostatic you ever heard, and then put that quality into a bass driver, these speakers had it, only with ten times the dynamic range. The one negative thing is they were VERY sensitive to amps. Forget driving the bass with tubes or pathetic zero feedback amps. I mean it. You'll need an amp with a high damping factor with at least some local feedback but when you do, wow.

Damn we miss you Peter.

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