I finally had the opportunity to see and listen to a pair of Vantage speakers. My local ML dealer is Sound Advice in Tampa ( a tweeter owned company). The just came in yesterday.
They look better in life than the photos I've seen. I like that they have a smaller box than the previous generation. Although, I still think they could have refined the edges and corners to be less sharp and pointy. The new panel is gorgeous.
The setup they had for them was poor as is typical for this chain of stores (however, a great place to buy MLs. Outstanding customer service). In a room packed with other gear and speakers and wired with low quality cable that is ran through a switch box that networks about 40 components and speakers. They were single wired with the ML metal jumper plates. One speaker had the wires connected to the high side with the other to the low side. The source was a cd played through a dvd player and powered with a Yamaha RX-Z9 receiver. A very good receiver but these speakers are worthy of a much better setup.
Over a year ago, Tweeter took over this Sound Advice store and cleared out thier high-end listening room to convert it to a dedicated HT room. They did this to sell various HT packages to consumers at the expense of a great 2 channel room. That HT room has a very minimal HT system in it and no one is ever in there. Meanwhile, what high-end gear they stil sell is now crammed into a room with at least 50-60 pieces of audio to include $5,000 MLs. What a waste of space and a big step backwards IMO.
Anyway, with this setup I could only listen for what potential the Vantages might have. But even with this setup I was impressed with how well they sounded. Being a less than a day old they're obviously not broken in yet and had a bright edge to them. However, there is no way to discern if the bright edge was from being new or from a lousy setup. Probably both.
The soundstaging was very big and the sound never seemed to come directly from the speakers. They were very detailed and transparent. I tried different settings on the woofer adjustment knob but any changes were surprisingly very subtle. I expected a broad range of adjustment like you would get from a subwoofer. It was more like the difference from the Flat to -3db switch on the back of an Ascent speaker. However, the woofer may be too new and tight to really open up yet.
My conclusion from what I heard under these conditions is that they do have great potential and I'm anxious to hear them broken-in in a quality system. The real test of course would be to bring a pair home and spend some time listening and comparing to my trusty Ascents.
They look better in life than the photos I've seen. I like that they have a smaller box than the previous generation. Although, I still think they could have refined the edges and corners to be less sharp and pointy. The new panel is gorgeous.
The setup they had for them was poor as is typical for this chain of stores (however, a great place to buy MLs. Outstanding customer service). In a room packed with other gear and speakers and wired with low quality cable that is ran through a switch box that networks about 40 components and speakers. They were single wired with the ML metal jumper plates. One speaker had the wires connected to the high side with the other to the low side. The source was a cd played through a dvd player and powered with a Yamaha RX-Z9 receiver. A very good receiver but these speakers are worthy of a much better setup.
Over a year ago, Tweeter took over this Sound Advice store and cleared out thier high-end listening room to convert it to a dedicated HT room. They did this to sell various HT packages to consumers at the expense of a great 2 channel room. That HT room has a very minimal HT system in it and no one is ever in there. Meanwhile, what high-end gear they stil sell is now crammed into a room with at least 50-60 pieces of audio to include $5,000 MLs. What a waste of space and a big step backwards IMO.
Anyway, with this setup I could only listen for what potential the Vantages might have. But even with this setup I was impressed with how well they sounded. Being a less than a day old they're obviously not broken in yet and had a bright edge to them. However, there is no way to discern if the bright edge was from being new or from a lousy setup. Probably both.
The soundstaging was very big and the sound never seemed to come directly from the speakers. They were very detailed and transparent. I tried different settings on the woofer adjustment knob but any changes were surprisingly very subtle. I expected a broad range of adjustment like you would get from a subwoofer. It was more like the difference from the Flat to -3db switch on the back of an Ascent speaker. However, the woofer may be too new and tight to really open up yet.
My conclusion from what I heard under these conditions is that they do have great potential and I'm anxious to hear them broken-in in a quality system. The real test of course would be to bring a pair home and spend some time listening and comparing to my trusty Ascents.
