Hi Adam,
You're correct. They're discontinued. Just the last few pair left. They look very nice for the price but I was wondering about sound quality. For sound quality, which ML speaker can you compare them with?
They dont have a dealer in the states, that means practically zero service. On the other hand, the designer comapres this set to Summit. Of course, he is biased since he designed this speaker. But in your opinion, was this set as good as Summit?
These speakers were made by a subwoofer technology company, as an experiment. When Nakamichi showed interest in licencing the design, production was ramped up, however we all know where Nakamichi is these days. Nakamichi's debt caused the cancellation of the order, and the subsequent cancellation of the ES design.
Support is fragmented as Whise are essentially a licencing company. Whatmough, among others (
www.whatmough.com.au) have bought their subwoofer technology (have a look how similar their "Impulse" subwoofer looks to my Whise sub), and the holding company (Reality Design) is actively engaged.
So firstly, it depends on what you think of all this?
As for the sound, they are very different to the Summit. But all this is from memory, as I heard them about two years ago. They sound a lot warmer overall, and the bass is fantastic (as you would expect). The top end is a bit reserved though. It doesn't jump out at you from the 3D soundstage like with MLs. They make the Summit sound a bit clinical by comparison, but I do think the Summit has the edge in the overall panel design and response you get from that.
All from memory though - haven't heard them in two years.
But to answer your question - no, you can't compare them to ANY ML design. Just too different.