Today I managed to audition Epos M12i pairing with my Marantz SR6004 AVR at SWISH Indirapuram. I am thankful to Akhil for assisting me in taking the AVR from my car at the society gate to his apartment. Akhil is a thorough young gentleman with knowledge on the product. I have learnt few tips form him regarding AVR calibration, speaker wire, HDMI cables etc. He was all along very particular about my audition, my feelings and satisfaction. In Delhi, we generally get very rare opportunity like this except a few like Denny, Ashish etc.
Our audition started at precise 10-00 am and continued for about 3 hours. The Indirapuram outlet is not a shop, but an apartment. The room was actually the drawing-dining room of the apartment with few chairs only. The room is approx. 220-240 sq.ft area. There was no room accoustic and due to no furniture and almost bare room there was echo. The speakers were just box opened (reached last night only) and kept on rack. There was no proper stand. I have requested to place the speakers about 6 ft apart (the way I will be able to place in my room). There was about 8-10" space between the speaker and rear wall. The source was Philips DVD player. It was used just as transport to get the digital out and the DAC of the AVR was utilised. The speaker cable used was of 'Liberty'.
First we started with Chris Boti's saxophone. It is my favourite CD. Epos is a renowned speaker for music. The M12i is the changed and modified version of their earlier M12.2. The speaker is slimmer compared to M12.2.
Next track was Kenny Roger's 'Lady'. The song was played with detail but I found slight graininess in upper mid bass. The sound was not bright and very musical. One can listen for long without any fatigue.
Next track was Andrea Bocelli's 'Bessamare'. The rendition of Andrea's voice was captured beautifully. This track I have listened in many systems in my recent auditions (Quad 11L, KEF Q300, Monitor Audio BX2). I will rate EPos as one of the top performer among them.
Next I have tried a bright recording of Tagore song by Lopamudra Mitra. Epos managed the brightness of the recording very well. The representation was not bright and quite enjoyable. I have experienced unpleasant brightness while listening in KEF. Epos scored over KEF in this regard.
As I will be using Epos for movies also, I next tried a CD 'Apan Gaan' by Soumitra Chatterjee and Srikanta Acharya. The narration by Soumitra Chatterjee was wholesome and clear. The modulation, soft words came very nicely. Hopefully, the movie dialogues will be produced nicely by Epos.
The demo set-up at Swish Indirapuram does not have any movie set-up. No 5.1 or projector. So how the speaker will actually behave for a movie could not be tested. But a detailed musical speaker which handles the bright recording and bass nicely is expected not to dishearten. But I have to test it in real movie situation specially due to its high crossover point and limited woofer excursion. Somehow, I am having some doubt that it's driver design may not be that much adequate for getting the desired woofer excursion, which may be required in demanding scenes.I didn't have any Drum and heavy bass track and could'nt throw challenge to Epos M12i to show its woofer excursion. I may be wrong. If there is any real user of Epos M12i as movie speaker, may correct me.
Next track was my favourite Kati Melua's 'Nine million bicycle'. Very sweet voice and melodious song. Epos did justice to it even with AVR. Obviously, if pairing with a good stereo amp it will bring more charm and magic.
Our next track was Bikram Ghosh's 'Rhythmscape'. The quick play of tabla and other instruments were produced aptly without any sign of jumbling up. The timbre was beautiful. After burning in for 40-50 hours, the representation is expected to be more fluid.
Afterwards we played few more tracks e.g. Stockfish record of David Roth, A 60-70 rock music (from Akhil's selection). etc.
All in all, Epos M12i is a good speaker for music. How, it will perform for movie, I am yet to test it.
