Gentlemen ( i wish there were some ladies too in this wonderful hobby of ours....),
Greetings from Rethm.
Seeing some posts on the Rethms, i thought i would pen a few clarifications and answer some questions that seemed to have popped up in response to reignofchaos's and hydra's very flattering posts after their visit our studio in Cochin.
To answer some of the questions:
Size of room:
One can use a big speaker in a small room. It is just that the bigger models are usually designed to "fill" larger rooms with larger soundstages, and very often it may just be unecessary in a smaller room. One problem, however, that certain big speakers may have in small rooms is the possibility of excessive bass. The Rethms have a level control and a filter setting selector on the bass amplifiers....which will ensure that it can be tailored to meet the requirements of most rooms.
And....we do have smaller models for smaller rooms.....
Placement in the room:
Soulforged's observations is correct. We do indeed like to place our speakers well into the room -- as this provides the best illusion of a real soundstage. And this applies not just to the Rethms, but to ALL speakers. The Rethms will work perfectly well much closer to the front wall....but dont expect the same holographic 3-dimensional soundstage one would get with speakers pulled well out into the room. Again, some speakers may be subjected to a "bass bump" when it is placed too close to a wall. In the Rethm, because of its level control, the bass can be turned down appropriately.
Amplification:
Yes....my preferred amplification is certainly valve. However, good solid state amps do work exceedingly well with them. Srajan Ebaen when he did the new Saadhana review used Nelson Pass's new solid state amps exclusively for the review. My dealer in Chicago -- says that his favourite amp with the Saadhana is a pair of 300 wpc Clayton Audio monoblocs.
The Rethms are rather revealing.... and less-than-stellar valve amps tend to sound better than less-than-stellar solid state amps when used with high-resolution loudspeakers. There is a greater chance of an ss amp sounding thin and edgy than a valve amp.... and this is why most folks do tend to think of valves when talking Rethm. If you have a smooth and full sounding ss amp.... it will work well with the Rethms.
Some folks i believe still think Rethm uses Lowther drivers. We stopped using Lowthers 3 years ago, and we now have our own custom built line of wideband drivers -- one for each of our models.
And last but not least....all of you are welcome to come visit us in Cochin. It will be a great privilege to meet and spend some time with music and audio lovers like you guys.
My apologies....for this rather long post.
Cheers,
jacob
. After the pleasantries, my family was left to relax in the beautiful lounge and we went to the listening den.