Original CLS and reQuest

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quickk9

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I am new to this group, but I have learned a great deal already. I have been away from the audio field for ten plus years, but I decided to reenter it last month. I purchased original CLS speakers in the late '80s and recently hooked them up after several years of storage. When they sounded terrible with a some buzzing, etc. I decided to seek out new speakers and settled on some reQuests. I then followed Jim Powers advice (I remember speaking to him in the late '80s) and thoroughly vacuumed the speakers. No more buzzing and great sound.
As I said, I have been away from audio for awhile, but in listening to the CLS's and the reQuests, I may have to give the nod to the CLS's on chamber music, symphony music, and opera and the reQuests on everything else. Deep bass goes to the reQuests, while imaging seems better on the CLS. I haven't spent a great deal of time optimizing the placement in my 16' x 18' room - maybe a couple of hours on each speaker. I was curious what others thought of this comparison. Perhaps I need to spend more time with placement. I am following all suggestions so far with respect to front and sidewall placement and each speaker sounds best in a different location.
Any thoughts? (The obvious suggestion of buying another set of electronics and keeping both speakers has been considered, but is not the optimum answer from a financial point of view. :) )
Thanks in advance.
 
quickk9 said:
I am new to this group, but I have learned a great deal already. I have been away from the audio field for ten plus years, but I decided to reenter it last month. I purchased original CLS speakers in the late '80s and recently hooked them up after several years of storage. When they sounded terrible with a some buzzing, etc. I decided to seek out new speakers and settled on some reQuests. I then followed Jim Powers advice (I remember speaking to him in the late '80s) and thoroughly vacuumed the speakers. No more buzzing and great sound.
As I said, I have been away from audio for awhile, but in listening to the CLS's and the reQuests, I may have to give the nod to the CLS's on chamber music, symphony music, and opera and the reQuests on everything else. Deep bass goes to the reQuests, while imaging seems better on the CLS. I haven't spent a great deal of time optimizing the placement in my 16' x 18' room - maybe a couple of hours on each speaker. I was curious what others thought of this comparison. Perhaps I need to spend more time with placement. I am following all suggestions so far with respect to front and sidewall placement and each speaker sounds best in a different location.
Any thoughts? (The obvious suggestion of buying another set of electronics and keeping both speakers has been considered, but is not the optimum answer from a financial point of view. :) )
Thanks in advance.
Welcome...I am a proud owner of a CLSIIz pair. Also I have another pair of Prodigy. the ones that I listen more often are the CLS, and this is, 1) my room is very small, 2) I like combo music, not too many instruments at the same time...so the CLSs are just fine with this kind of music, besides I am not too much into a too many bass energy in my room...I use the help of a tiny little sub (ML Dynamo) and the cut frequency is 45 Hz, and I am very pleased with them. I think all depends on you liking for music and the stage presentation. Both are great speakers and both have their own caracteristic sound. The Request have the best mid-range over many speakers at the market 10 years ago, or even today!. Choose the one that you like most, and enjoy your music as we do...happy listening,
Roberto.
 
CLS - GR8 Speakers

I just audtioned a pair of CLSII. What a great sound!! Why did they stop manufacturing these speakers!!! Currently, I am using SL3 (1999) with Plinius SA-102, Sonic Frontiers Line 1 preamp (Siemens NOS T6922 ubes) and Wadia 861. I am seriously thinking of upgrading the speakers. I have a choice for Magnepan 3.6r and Martin Logan Vantage. My room is 25' by 13'(width) by 12". What do you recommend? I listen to Jazz mostly.
 
abhijit said:
I just audtioned a pair of CLSII. What a great sound!! Why did they stop manufacturing these speakers!!! Currently, I am using SL3 (1999) with Plinius SA-102, Sonic Frontiers Line 1 preamp (Siemens NOS T6922 ubes) and Wadia 861. I am seriously thinking of upgrading the speakers. I have a choice for Magnepan 3.6r and Martin Logan Vantage. My room is 25' by 13'(width) by 12". What do you recommend? I listen to Jazz mostly.
Hola...all I can say to you is choose the one that you like most!...for me, I would go for the Vantage for sure...the sound of them is so close to the Summits. Magnepan is a great speaker too, but to my liking, and my ears, the size of the instruments are bigger on some notes or vocal notes. The Vantage keeps this notes at the right size...and I like this feature very much!...listen carefully to both with the same program material, you will notice right away what I am saying. Also the tranparency and the air between instruments are another features that I do like very much too. Don´t listen the quantity, listen the quality of the presentation, the stage, the 3 dimensional stage, that there are not ping pong notes from a piano too. There are some many considerations of why I remain with the ML sound than another very good speaker brand, even like Magnepan. As an example, the diaphragm weights less than the air that it moves...only ML have this feature...also, it is a truly push-pull panel...not so in Magnepan. Also we have the positive transients to forward and negative to back of the speaker...another great spec, it is a dipolar panel, not bipolar like the others, etc...I could be here speaking regarding the difference in construction too, like there are no screws securing the cabinet, only a special glue that expands and contracts depending of the room temperature...and a puzzle joint pieces of the cabinet, that secures them like one piece...etc...but the final judge is your ear...trust them, they will tell you which ones you should buy!...happy listening,
Roberto.
 
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roberto said:
Hola...all I can say to you is choose the one that you like most!...for me, I would go for the Vantage for sure...the sound of them is so close to the Summits. Magnepan is a great speaker too, but to my liking, and my ears, the size of the instruments are bigger on some notes or vocal notes. The Vantage keeps this notes at the right size...and I like this feature very much!...listen carefully to both with the same program material, you will notice right away what I am saying. Also the tranparency and the air between instruments are another features that I do like very much too. Don´t listen the quantity, listen the quality of the presentation, the stage, the 3 dimensional stage, that there are not ping pong notes from a piano too. There are some many considerations of why I remain with the ML sound than another very good speaker brand, even like Magnepan. As an example, the diaphragm weights less than the air that it moves...only ML have this feature...also, it is a truly push-pull panel...not so in Magnepan. Also we have the positive transients to forward and negative to back of the speaker...another great spec, it is a dipolar panel, not bipolar like the others, etc...I could be here speaking regarding the difference in construction too, like there are no screws securing the cabinet, only a special glue that expands and contracts depending of the room temperature...and a puzzle joint pieces of the cabinet, that secures them like one piece...etc...but the final judge is your ear...trust them, they will tell you which ones you should buy!...happy listening,
Roberto.
I forgot to mention that I do like too, the new woofer power amp buit in the Vantages and the bass level control of +-10dBs at 35Hz!...happy listening,
Roberto.
 
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