kucharsk@number6.Solbourne.COM (William Kucharski) (07/02/90)
Well, here it is -- a review of the Apogee Stage Ones. I picked them up from the dealer on Friday night. They came in a rugged cardboard box, and some assembly was required. You had to attach the "feet" -- they consisted of a plate which ended in a triangular point in the front, and a bracket which extended back about 5" or so and contained a screw which ended in a point. In this way the speaker was firmly spiked through the carpet into the floor, giving a solid base. Equipment Used: =============== Amplifier: Adcom GFA-555 Preamplifier: Harmon-Kardon Citation 21 CD Player: Denon DCD-1500II Tuner: Magnum-Dynalab FT-101 The connections on the back were pretty straightforward. The Stages are obviously set up for biwiring, as they have separate jacks for Midrange/Tweeter and Woofer connections. I'm not sure if it was just a fluke of the units I received, but there was no "shorting plate," so I _had_ to biwire; you could get around this I suppose by stripping the ends of the speaker wire long enough to make it around both sets of binding posts, but I wouldn't recommend this. However, the posts are placed such that if you connected each side of the speaker cable to a standard "stereo" banana jack, this would work as well. Connectors were "standard" 4-way binding posts; I say "4-way" because they didn't have a hole in the post through which a stripped wire end could be placed. Above the binding posts was a 2-way toggle switch for the Midrange/Tweeters marked "Normal/High", the high position adding a boost to the high end response. When I first powered up my amp (Adcom GFA-555) after connecting it to the Apogees, they sounded quite harsh. A shrill high-end, but good midrange and a nice low end. However, since these were new units, I figured they'd take a bit to break in. I placed them about 4' from the rear wall, about 7' apart, toed-in toward the listener. I sat down and began to do a little "introductory" listening. Over a wide range of music, from classical (Beethoven's Ninth) to pop (Wilson Phillips) to rock (Pink Floyd's "The Wall"), the Stages showed that classic Apogee ability to sound good on many types of music, unlike some other speakers. Let me state for the record that I am an Apogee fan, but not really a planar fan. On the one hand, I've never really liked the sound of Magnepans; on the other I hold as my "dream speaker" the Apogee Divas; to my ear they easily beat the Infinity Betas and IRS Series V -- but I digress. I felt this was a good start and left them to "break in" overnight using FM interstation noise. I got a start Saturday afternoon and decided to listen to some entire selections. I started off with Wilson Phillips as a "sanity check" and comparison of what I'd heard the night before. The break-in definitely helped, as the highs were less metallic (the previous night it sounded like all drummers were using metal sticks on cymbals) and the bass warmed considerably. I was going to like this. Soundstaging was nice, with a good wide soundfield spread in front of me. The classic "planar" sound was evident -- no point-sourcing at all but sound seeming to eminate instead from a "cloud" around the area of both speakers. After a few tracks, I decided to listen to something a bit less EQ'd, and decided to switch to Mannheim Steamroller's "Fresh Aire III." =============================================================================== SIDE NOTE I got up to change the CD and noticed that my Adcom had suddenly become a space heater. The Stages have a nominal 3 ohm impedence, and are most likely on the inefficient side of things; I managed to light the clip lights on my Adcom for the first time with these speakers (comapared to the speakers they're replacing, normal cone speakers with an efficency of 91 db/watt at 1 meter). I decided to take a two-stage approach -- I pulled the Adcom out of the cabinet and also pulled out an old muffin fan and had it blow across the Adcom's cooling fins. When I pulled the amp out of the rack I'd say the temp. on the heat sinks was around 160 degrees F; after I'd started the fan the amp stabilized at around 120 or so. These speakers definitely want an amp that can swing some voltage. =============================================================================== Fresh Aire III was, in a word, beautiful. Good dynamics, great soundstage, just a treat to listen to. The crickets in the last few tracks sounded as if they were in the room, not just coming from speakers. Watch the dynamics here; the drum shots in "Tocatta" were what flashed my Adcom's clip lights for the first time. The Stages took it with ease -- I feel they could easily handle even more power than my Adcom was prepared to deliver. I changed to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and discovered the Stages' first shortcoming (or was it?) -- on the introductory "heartbeats," the Stages just seemed to lose it. Rather than sounding like low "thumps", the Stages sounded more like someone waving a large piece of sheet metal. I'm not sure if this was the Stages' fault, or the Adcoms. I would have liked to connect the Stages to something with more low-end control, like a Krell, to see if this problem disappeared. Once this portion had passed by, the Stages once again became lovely to behold. Voices had a very natural quality to them, and Clare Torry's solos sounded magnificent. Of course the DSotM sound effects (clocks, cash register, etc.) were wonderful as well. You could almost pick out the distinct location of each clock tick! For reference, I was playing the Mobile Fidelity Ultradisc version. Since I knew the Apogees or Adcom had a problem with low end, I decided to be silly and cued up the Telarc 1812. I was curious to see what would happen around cannon shot time. Being very careful to make sure that the amp was not clipping at cannon time, I sat back and was dismayed to hear what, if these were Magnepans, would be called "Maggie Slam," the planar version of the "fwok" of an overextended woofer cone. Turning down the volume of course helped, leading me to believe that if you like listening to music with lots of excessive bass content, these may not be the speakers for you (but then again what in the $2000 range is?). I've never really considered the 1812 to be anything but a torture test anyway, since most people don't go around listening to cannon shots most of the time. On disc after disc, I became aware that the Apogees were just wonderful. Nice, if somewhat compressed vertically soundstage (they are short speakers, about 38" tall), holographic imaging, just beautiful. But what really made my wife drool over the Stages was their performance on the Mobile Fidelity Ultradisc "The Power and the Majesty," specifically track 1, "The Thunderstorm." It was perfect. The rain seemed to be coming from outside, not within. Thunder rumbled through the room quite convincingly -- enough to convince anyone that planars are NOT bass-shy. My wife said it sounded exactly like what she used to hear growing up at her house, rain hitting the patio area in back of the kitchen. I agreed -- when I hit "pause" and the sound stopped, it was like playing God -- it just didn't seem like you should be able to turn that type of sonic image off and on like that -- just wonderful. At $1900 list, the Stages are a steal. I'd definitely recommend anyone looking at a pair of Vandersteen 2ci's take a listen if they can afford the extra $700 and have an amp that can drive them -- I'd recommend at _least_ 100 watts per channel to drive them properly. As for me -- well, I must honestly say that the vertical compression of the sound field bothered me a bit, as well as running out of room in regarding bass extension. I like pipe organ music, and so low bass is important to me. I originally auditioned the Stage because I wanted to see if they could "replace" the speakers I had originally considered purchasing -- the Apogee Caliper Signature. I've decided that as sweet as the Stages are, I'm going to toss in the extra $1000 and get the $2850 Calipers -- they're a little taller and do have a bit more low-bass extension. But don't get me wrong -- I definitely believe that for $2000, you'd be hard pressed to beat the Stages. Unfortunately, I've spent far too much time auditioning Calipers, and it's like listening to Calipers after spending a day with the Divas -- where before you heard only perfection, you begin to notice the little nits that are the raison d'etre for a speaker like the Diva. That's why I'm going with the Calipers. But then again, this entire review is IMHO, so be sure to listen before you buy. Please email me if you have specific questions about the review or would like more information regarding what I heard. -- =============================================================================== | Internet: kucharsk@Solbourne.COM | William Kucharski | | uucp: ...!{boulder,sun,uunet}!stan!kucharsk | Solbourne Computer, Inc. | = The opinions above are mine alone and NOT those of Solbourne Computer, Inc. =