Sidebar: Specifications
Mission 780 Argonaut: two-way, sealed-box loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1", impedance-transformed tweeter, two 215mm polypropylene homopolymer-cone woofers. Crossover frequency: 1.7kHz. Frequency response: 30Hz–20kHz ±3dB. Sensitivity: 95dB/W/m. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Amplifier requirements: 50–200W.
Dimensions: 37½" (950mm) H by 10¼" (260mm) W by 12" (320mm) D. Internal volume: 55 liters. Shipping weight: 62 lbs (28 kg) each.
Price: $1799/pair.
Mission Cyrus Two: integrated amplifier. Power output: 50Wpc into 8 ohms (17dBW), 80W into 4 ohms.…
Though the original Artemis Systems Eos has been around for a few years, it doesn't seem to have made a big impression on audiophiles. Judging by a brief but exciting audition of the new Eos Signature and its accompanying Base Module at HI-FI '96, I found it hard to understand how it could remain such a well-kept secret. A few weeks later, to my surprise, Wes Phillips asked me if I wanted to review a pair and, throwing caution to the winds, I jumped at the opportunity. Rash move.
The movers delivered three large boxes and two absolutely huge crates. Inside the boxes were the two Eos…
What about the bass? I expected nothing subterranean, but the overall frequency balance was fine at all reasonable listening levels. My favorite torture discs are my collection of recordings of Mahler's Symphony 6; with any of them, the Eos Signatures credibly reproduced the monstrous last movement. On Bernstein/DG (427 967-2) the hammer strokes lacked visceral impact, but everything else was fine in this live, multimiked, emotionally fierce performance. Switching to the better-balanced but more distant Zander/IMP CD (DMCD 93), also recorded at a concert performance, I was impressed with…
Sidebar 1: Associated Equipment
Analog Source: Heybrook TT2 turntable, Rega RB300 tonearm, Koetsu Black/Gold phono cartridge.
Digital Sources: Sonic Frontiers SFCD-1 with Straight Wire Maestro II interconnects; Audio Alchemy DDSPro/DTIPro32/DDE v3 with Audio Magic I2S cables and Cardas Golden Cross interconnects.
Preamplifiers: Klyne 6L3.3P, Sonic Frontiers Line-2.
Power Amplifiers: McCormack DNA-1 (1 or 2), Sonic Frontiers Power 2 (via Cardas Cross or Straight Wire Virtuoso interconnects).
Cables: Cardas Golden Hex 5C.—Kalman Rubinson
Sidebar 2: Measurements
The Artemis Eos Signature's plot of impedance magnitude and phase vs frequency is shown in fig.1. (Logistical difficulties with the enormous Base Module meant that I couldn't measure its impedance.) The speaker is basically easy to drive, remaining above 6 ohms over almost all the audio band. The tuning of the reflex port is indicated by the "saddle" in the magnitude trace centered on 42Hz, which implies reasonable low-frequency extension even without the bass module. Note the slight wrinkles in the traces at 230Hz and 400Hz; these suggest that there are cabinet…
Sidebar 3: Specifications
Artemis Systems Eos Signature: Two-way loudspeaker in ported enclosure with external first-order crossover (frequency not specified). Drive-units: 1" ceramic-dome tweeter, 7" three-layer Kevlar/Nomex honeycomb woofer/midrange driver. Frequency response: 50Hz–20kHz, ±2dB. Impedance: 8 ohms nominal, 7 ohms minimum. Sensitivity: 88.25dB/1W/1m. Recommended amplification: 35–150W.
Dimensions: 17" H by 13.5" W by 16.5" D. Crossover: 4" H by 12" W by 12" D. Weights: 70 lbs each (Eos), 10 lbs each (crossover).
Serial number of units reviewed: 1204.
Price: $…
Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell: Old Yellow Moon
Nonesuch 534285-2 (CD/HDTracks download). 2013. Brian Ahern, prod.; Donivan Cowart, eng.; John Baldwin, Noland O'Boyle, asst. engs. AAD? TT: 41:04
Performance *****
Sonics ****½
A recent survey of my teenaged nephew and his friends turned up a number of musical trends both predictable and surprising. It sent them into paroxysms of disbelief and laughter when the old-man uncle asked whether they liked any guitar bands, like, say . . . Green Day. Guitar bands, to say the least, ain't cool. Pop-oriented hip-hop artists like Wiz…
It's been 30 years since I began work on my very first equipment report, of the Goldbug Brier moving-coil phono cartridge, for Hi-Fi News & Record Review. That review appeared in the British magazine's May 1983 issue; I have lost track of how many equipment reviews I've written since then, but my review of the Vandersteen Treo loudspeaker in this issue is at least my 500th.
I touched on the subject of reviews in my Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture, "Where Did the Negative Frequencies Go?," which I was invited to give on October 21, 2011, at the 131st Audio Engineering Society…
In one sense, Richard Vandersteen has been the victim of his own success. His Model 2 loudspeaker (footnote 1), introduced at the 1977 Consumer Electronics Show, put his company on the map but proved a hard product to improve on. Based on the idea that the HF and midrange drive-units should have the minimal baffle area in their acoustic vicinity, both to optimize lateral dispersion and to eliminate the effects of diffraction from the baffle edges, the Model 2 also used a combination of a sloped-back driver array and first-order crossover filters to give a time-coincident wavefront launch.…
The Vandersteen Treo was noticeably insensitive compared with the 85dB-sensitive KEF LS50 that preceded it in my room; I recommend at least a 100Wpc amplifier to drive it. The benefit of a truly time-coincident speaker is that a pair can give superb stereo imaging. That benefit is sometimes offset by compromises in dispersion, but the close-as-practicable vertical spacing of the Treo's drive-units means that it's not as fussy about the exact listening axis as might be expected. However, you still need to sit with your ears close to the optimal listening axis. Pink noise revealed a hollow…
