Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

The speakers were positioned for the best sound (with only one pair of loudspeakers in the listening room at a time). Source components consisted of a Revox A77 to play my own and others' 15ips master tapes, a Linn Sondek/Ekos/Troika setup sitting on a Sound Organisation table to play LPs, and Kinergetics KCD-40 and Meridian 206 CD players. Amplification consisted of a Mark Levinson No.26/25 preamplifier combination driving a pair of Mark Levinson No.20.5 monoblocks via 15' lengths of AudioQuest LiveWire Lapis balanced interconnect. Speaker cable was 5' lengths of AudioQuest Clear Hyperlitz.

I certainly don't regard the rest of my system as being typical of that with which these three pairs of speakers will be used, but it certainly should enable me to get the best sound from the speakers under test. I carried out comparisons with my vintage pair of Rogers LS3/5as, the pair of Celestion 3s that I favorably reviewed last October, and our review pair of Thiel CS1.2s. (The Celestions have since risen in price to the princely sum of $269/pair—still a great buy, in my opinion.) The Rogers and Thiels give of their best in free space; the Celestions need to be against the wall.—John Atkinson