<<On contrary to the subject line, the below speakers are auditioned in Mumbai. And as always, I am a baby in this whole wide audiophile world and hence my review should be taken as my personal opinion as per my tastes. And finally as a disclaimer, this should not be in anyway be treated as a professional review>>
Hi All,
I am back here again with my speaker audition impressions.
I visited the Pro Fx showroom in Atria mall in Mumbai recently. They had the ready stock of the Polk Audio RTi3 and KEF Q300 bookshelf speakers. Fortunately, both were on my audition hitlist for some time, but never had a chance to audition them before. So I was a happy man. You can check out the details of these speakers in the following links:
http://www.pearlaudiovideo.com/products/speakers-products/bookshelf/kef-q300/
http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/rtia/index.php#rtia3
The pro Fx showroom in Atria mall is quite small but have dedicated rooms for music and HT. The rooms are sonically treated and are quite dead.
Vijay from the showroom escorted me to the listening room where I could see a huge high powered Denon integrated amplifier connected to a focal bookshelf speaker (the speakers costs upwards of 200k). I immidiately asked Vijay to remove the Denon and Focal setup from my sight. Didn't want to get into the never ending upgrade trap so early in my audiophile life. I asked him to connect any amp having power and sound signature similar to my NAD C350. He connected a Denon integrated amp with power output of 60W (sorry guys, didn't noticed the amp details as i was busy drooling the speakers).
Vijay set up both Polk Audio and KEF with the Denon. Unfortunately, he had only one speaker cable hence A-B could not be done.
The first speaker which I auditioned was Polk Audio RTiA3. Unfortunately, I didn't had my demo CD with me and had to totally rely on the collection which they offered. The track which I played was "Tu Muskura" from the movie Yuvraaj. I like Alka's voice in the track and she has really pitched it high. The polk rendered the sounds quite well with the volume knob at about 11'O clock position, the mids were good. The bass was a bit bloated and loose. The highs were quite high. The speakers are very bright. No doubt about it. Even the amateur me experienced that the highs and lows were somewhat overwhelming the midrange.
Initially, I was impressesd by the pin point imaging and sharpness of the sound but after about 10mins of playback, I started to experience a bit of fatigue and a mild headache
. The overall soundstage was good and the imaging was pin sharp uptill the volume at 12 O'clock position. But once the volume was cranked up above that, the soundstage fell apart and the imaging was lost and the low frequencies overshadowed the entire spectrum. Please note that this happened only at insanely high volume levels. I had to ask Vijay to stop the music.
Vijay then connected the KEF Q300 speakers. These speakers have the Uni-Q array drivers which is essentially a single co-axial driver. Once connected, we played the same track. The volume output of these speakers was sigificantly low at the same volume position, hinting towards the lower sensitivity of these speakers (87dB vs 89dB of Polk). I never knew that 2dB sensitivity difference could make such a difference in sound levels!
Neverthless, coming to the sound. For me, the immidiate thing which impressed me was the very wide soundstage. The speakers gave an impression of a huge concert hall. The imaging was lost a bit as compared to Polk but the soundstage was just huge. I think these speakers will make great companion for a Jazz night or a sunday evening Mozart renderation right in your living room. The sound from these speakers was very balanced and the output was very much balanced. There was no overpowering bass, no recessed mids and no shrill highs. This is the kind of speaker which you can hear for hours and can still enjoy the music. My first impression on this speaker was very good and it continued to be so.
After that we spun a few more CDs which include Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig in the Sky", RDB's "paathshala(be a rebel)" and few more. Vijay kept on frantically switching between the two speakers and I never had to miss the A-B comparison using the amp. So, finally afer listening to all genres of music on both the speakers, the Polk Audio started to loosen it's ground to me (atleast). They are not my kind of speakers, I realized.
The KEFs are a strong contender to my current favourates Paradigm Titan Monitors. But I have promised myself not to act in haste and impose self restraint on myself for any impulsive behaviour. I want this upgrade to last atleast 2 more years (you never know). So I would like to tread very carefully on these audiophile lands.
At about 28k (after 8% discount on the MRP), the KEFs are a sweet deal.
And yes, to rate the dealer, I would say Pro Fx are too helpful and customer friendly. Infact, they are the best dealers which I have visited till now in terms of customer orientation and product knowledge. Specially would like to thank Vijay for his patience and hospitality.
After Pro Fx, I decided to give an audition to the Bose bookshelf speakers in the Bose showroom, just because I never had heard their other speakers, other than the acoustimass systems. They had their two bookshelf speakers on display. One Bose 301 bookshelf speaker and one vintage looking 901 speakers with an external active equalizer. I would not like to go for an in depth review of the speakers, but would say that these speakers would make decent speakers for background music listening........but only if offered at half of their current price.
The next speakers on my target are the PSB, Tannoy and <<Please Suggest>>
Cheers!
