From: James B. Willis Sent: Monday, April 13, 1998 2:50 PM To: Frank Van Alstine (E-mail) Subject: Long Overdue Biro Review Frank, After now about 3 months, I think can take a shot at fairly evaluating the Biro L/1. Whenever I get a new component, I studiously avoid forming strong opinions for a few months. This ensures that I can get past the "WOW" effect that some things have. It also gives me a chance to make collateral changes that might be needed in order to allow the component to perform at or near its best. In the case of the Biros, the big problem was the room acoustics. They are better now, but not perfect. I have 3 rugs on the wall immediately behind the Biros (each 1x1.5 meters). A few leafy houseplants, big pillows in the corners, and a heavy persian rug on the floor. The Biros are on unpolished marble pillars, 60 cm high, 29 cm deep, and 25 cm wide. Needless to say, they are very heavy - about 75 kilos apiece. The underneath floor is concrete/tile, but the pillars are (1) on top of the rug, and (2) covered by washcloths. This de-couples the speakers reasonably well, but is an area where minor improvement is needed. I have not yet been able to find the "right" high density foam. They are placed 52 cm out from the back wall, and 92 cm from each sidewall. They are 133 cm apart, and about 170 cm from the listening area. They are toed in about 10 degrees. Jazz, little else, as source. (I used to be able to listen to rock & roll on the maggies, but on the Biros, most non-acoustic stuff sounds, well, in a word, horrible. There are some exceptions, but not many.) Most of the jazz CDs are older stuff - Ellington, Coltrane, Davis, Monk, Peterson, Getz, Brubeck, etc. etc. A number of newer things that Telarc has put out - Jamal, Peterson, Brubeck, Shearing. Bass response is excellent. (The pillars helped eliminate some of the "boom" I heard originally, as did the rugs on the wall.) It is very tight and detailed. There is also excellent separation of instruments in the lower registers. And, interestingly enough, I can position the bass instruments. I say interestingly, because it would seem to belie the adage that you can't tell where deep bass is coming from, which is why subwoofers come in mono flavour. I now understand that the maggies lost a fair bit of bass from rear wall reflection/cancellation. Given that the bass extension is deeper than the maggies, it is hard to tell what is missing (if anything) on the bottom. B. Feingold's letter noted a "sense of fullness" that was added from a subwoofer, and I suspect this virtually inaudible "feeling" is missing, but little else. I still seem to have a residual resonance at about 50-60 Hz, which seems to add a little "whuuuuufffff" - probably the room. The midrange is probably the best feature - piano, saxophone, vocals. The crossover is impressively matched to the speakers. The newer Telarcs, and the Blue Note "Connoiseur" remasters are stunning in their absolute reality. Older CDs are a mixed bag, depending on the recording quality. A lot of the stuff Rudy Van Gelder recorded in the 50s is remarkably good - but even so, on the Biros the master tape "sound" and the tube recording equipment is plainly audible. On the lesser recordings, one can really hear the recording equipment get into a muddle with some complex passages. I note these things because they are really most audible in the midrange. But in short, the midrange is as close to real as I have yet heard in any audio system. In the upper end, I have 2 problems. Room acoustics still leave a bit of ringing. It is that small added wince on certain notes with certain instruments (e.g., trumpets in the upper register). Part of the problem is having 3.5 meter ceilings - the ceiling and upper walls, all solid masonry, are undamped/uncovered. The other problem is psychological - I once owned one of the worst speakers ever made - the Yamaha NS-1000, which had a beryllium dome tweeter. These had a natural tendancy to ring under the best of conditions, so when I put them in a wood panelled room, powered by Nakamichi (yeccch) electronics it was true torture. Hmmmmm. I hope you can see the problem - a little bit of ringing is translated as "metal tweeters ring" because of a past bias. Understanding the problem helps a little, but it will take a lot more work on the room to overcome this. Oh. I can also hear the Omega CD player. I understand why you built the TOPP-DAC, now. It's just a little bit of je ne sais pas quoi in the upper end. Completely unnoticeable on the maggies. So maybe "revealing" is the best term I can think of to describe the upper end. Overall impressions - Properly set up, these speakers image incredibly well. When they faced dead ahead, I could plainly hear sounds from each individual speaker. When I toed them in a bit, they completely disappeared and left a very nice soundstage where instruments began to individually locate - depending upon the artistry of the recording engineer. They are very musical. Need I say more? They are at or near the top of the class. They are very detailed and revealing. I can almost hear the words as Thelonius Monk and Oscar Peterson "sing along" to their playing (actually, more like "mutter along"). On other speakers, this is at best a vague and indistinct muttering way in the background. Bass fingering is well revealed. Technique nuances in the wind instruments are plainly revealed. The instruments are well contrasted. Recording room or auditorium acoustics can be clearly heard. They are brilliant in this regard. What weakness? Hmmm. I would say they slightly favor the mid-bass region - it comes across as a slight warmth. In no way objectionable, but I suspect it's not really there on the source. I would love to sit down for a day or so and do a side by side comparison of the Biros with some of my all-time favorites - Quad ESLs, B&W 801s, Acoustat 6 (I think that was the one), and Magnepan 3.3s. I would also like to compare them with some of the other "top rated" speakers that are out there - Dunlavy, Thiel, Vandersteen, Gallo (I just can't figure how these could possibly sound any good), NHT, Martin Logan. Not so easy to do from here in Yurrup. Nearby, there are some "audiophile" French speakers that are, ummm, polite. Lots of Bang & Olufsen. Limited selection of B&W. Not much else. Grot electronics, too. Sheesh. And to think, Geneva has a record store dedicated entirely to jazz - probably 5,000 CDs. How ironic. These are definitely one of the top 10 speakers available at any price. Best regards. Jim

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