Hi all!
I'm new to the forum and happy owner of 3 new ML Preface tower speakers (that's right, 3! LOL). I know it's unusual, but read on...
Let me start by saying that I've been admiring these speakers for awhile now. I first auditioned them at the local Magnolia-Bestbuy store over a year ago when I was looking for a good receiver to upgrade my old one. I basically sampled all the speakers in the showroom, and this stood out from the rest. At that time, each Preface retailed for $750, which was way beyond my budget and not a priority. I was just amazed with the clarity, detail, and natural-kind of sound vs. the other ones that were sampled.
So anyway, last Saturday, my wife was buying something from a nearby store, so I went ahead and checked out Bestbuy while waiting for her... see if there were any worthwhile deals for Xmas. Found my way back to the Magnolia showroom and eventually to the ML Preface demo speakers which were still there. Something caught my eye, turns out the price has dropped to $499 each, WOW, it was on sale! So I asked the salesman if I could audition them again and called my wife on the phone to come over. We both auditioned a couple of other speakers too. The MLs still sounded much better & clearer than the rest under $1K speakers. Cut the long story short, my wife liked them and she finally gave me the nod after the salesman mentioned a set of the speakers will quality for 36 months 0% APR. He said he was down to his last 3. I then asked him if he was willing to give me a discount on the 3rd one (I already had this idea of trying out a center tower speaker before). He said sure, he'd give me a $50 discount and also that I had 30 days to return any of the speakers if it didn't work out.
Here is my setup:
Onkyo TX-SR806 THX-Ultra2 receiver
ML Preface - Left/Right (replaced PolkAudio RT800s)
ML Preface - Center (replaced PolkAudio CSi5)
KEF Q80 floorspeakers - Surrounds
Velodyne DPS-12 Subwoofer
I hooked them up just this weekend and they sounded pretty good right out of the box (after I got them calibrated with the reciever's Audyssey setup). I know they need to be broken-in for at least 100 hours and I can't wait till they start sounding even better. Our living room space is a fairly large because it is an openfloor-type with an adjoining dining & kitchen area. The 52" Samsung LCD is on a corner so, it somehow allows the front configuration this way:
Left speaker --- LCD TV --- Center ---- Right (speakers are evenly spaced)
Our 3-person couch is close to 15 feet from the TV/speakers so I thought with the slightly angled TV, hopefully the center channel doesn't get localized too much given the listening/viewing distance and wide soundstage of the Preface (at least in theory). After setting up, I sampled all the concerts stored in my Uverse DVR and DVD collection, ranging from Hall&Oates (live at the Troubador), George Michael, Simply Red, Police, David Foster, etc. THEY ALL sounded way much better to my ears compared to the previous Polk L-C-R setup. Also, I closed my eyes and told my wife the same if we could both localize the center speaker on the right side of the TV, we both concluded we couldn't, then again concerts tend to be stereo-sh... so just to make sure, we watched a couple of HD movies from the DVR, and still, we couldn't localize the center channel. Last night, we saw a new BluRay from the mail titled "Not Forgotten" (in full length) which kinda sucked, but we still came to the same conclusion with the center speaker's positioning.
Overall, I'm really happy, the front L-C-R speaker setup now has a seamless soundstage, with the audio transitions flawlessly from Left, to center, to right, vice-versa. The ML Preface speakers are great value, especially at $499 a piece and 36-month no interest BB financing. I highly recommend these speakers to anyone looking for a high quality setup w/ budget in mind! :rocker:
I'm new to the forum and happy owner of 3 new ML Preface tower speakers (that's right, 3! LOL). I know it's unusual, but read on...
Let me start by saying that I've been admiring these speakers for awhile now. I first auditioned them at the local Magnolia-Bestbuy store over a year ago when I was looking for a good receiver to upgrade my old one. I basically sampled all the speakers in the showroom, and this stood out from the rest. At that time, each Preface retailed for $750, which was way beyond my budget and not a priority. I was just amazed with the clarity, detail, and natural-kind of sound vs. the other ones that were sampled.
So anyway, last Saturday, my wife was buying something from a nearby store, so I went ahead and checked out Bestbuy while waiting for her... see if there were any worthwhile deals for Xmas. Found my way back to the Magnolia showroom and eventually to the ML Preface demo speakers which were still there. Something caught my eye, turns out the price has dropped to $499 each, WOW, it was on sale! So I asked the salesman if I could audition them again and called my wife on the phone to come over. We both auditioned a couple of other speakers too. The MLs still sounded much better & clearer than the rest under $1K speakers. Cut the long story short, my wife liked them and she finally gave me the nod after the salesman mentioned a set of the speakers will quality for 36 months 0% APR. He said he was down to his last 3. I then asked him if he was willing to give me a discount on the 3rd one (I already had this idea of trying out a center tower speaker before). He said sure, he'd give me a $50 discount and also that I had 30 days to return any of the speakers if it didn't work out.
Here is my setup:
Onkyo TX-SR806 THX-Ultra2 receiver
ML Preface - Left/Right (replaced PolkAudio RT800s)
ML Preface - Center (replaced PolkAudio CSi5)
KEF Q80 floorspeakers - Surrounds
Velodyne DPS-12 Subwoofer
I hooked them up just this weekend and they sounded pretty good right out of the box (after I got them calibrated with the reciever's Audyssey setup). I know they need to be broken-in for at least 100 hours and I can't wait till they start sounding even better. Our living room space is a fairly large because it is an openfloor-type with an adjoining dining & kitchen area. The 52" Samsung LCD is on a corner so, it somehow allows the front configuration this way:
Left speaker --- LCD TV --- Center ---- Right (speakers are evenly spaced)
Our 3-person couch is close to 15 feet from the TV/speakers so I thought with the slightly angled TV, hopefully the center channel doesn't get localized too much given the listening/viewing distance and wide soundstage of the Preface (at least in theory). After setting up, I sampled all the concerts stored in my Uverse DVR and DVD collection, ranging from Hall&Oates (live at the Troubador), George Michael, Simply Red, Police, David Foster, etc. THEY ALL sounded way much better to my ears compared to the previous Polk L-C-R setup. Also, I closed my eyes and told my wife the same if we could both localize the center speaker on the right side of the TV, we both concluded we couldn't, then again concerts tend to be stereo-sh... so just to make sure, we watched a couple of HD movies from the DVR, and still, we couldn't localize the center channel. Last night, we saw a new BluRay from the mail titled "Not Forgotten" (in full length) which kinda sucked, but we still came to the same conclusion with the center speaker's positioning.
Overall, I'm really happy, the front L-C-R speaker setup now has a seamless soundstage, with the audio transitions flawlessly from Left, to center, to right, vice-versa. The ML Preface speakers are great value, especially at $499 a piece and 36-month no interest BB financing. I highly recommend these speakers to anyone looking for a high quality setup w/ budget in mind! :rocker:
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