Hello Mark, welcome to WBF and glad to hear from you. Air Tight with 3/5As, I kinda know your bias.
I did not proceed to have extended listening sessions with the ex3mes for 2 reasons. First. what I hear is so liquid and juicy (nice box coloration as they call it) that I might find reverting back to my own beloved Maggies a not so happy experience when the time comes to take them out and back to the owner. Second, to get their 'best' sound, I had to remove the Maggies from where they sit now and shove them out of the room and find the optimum placement for the ex3mes, and I figure if I do that, all the more I would be tempting myself to buy a pair.
I've heard the original Strads back in 2003. The sound is just lovely, and the owner came from Extremas and Amatis prior to that. Can't go wrong. The newer anniversary Strad is 'brighter' , and not as lush as the orig Strad, an as Aida1 user told me (he had the orig Strad too). The tweeters of the ex3mes are not bright at all, even off the box/crates they sounded very detailed, fine, extended, but not bright, and I was cranking them above my normal listening level already. My amp is the Jadis PA100, KT88 version. Sweet on the mids and highs and packs a surprising lot of wallop in the bass. Sounds a lot more than its rated 150w and my Maggies love that power. I posted some pics of it here:
Back in the early 90s, I had a pair of Jadis JA200 and a Jadis JPL preamp. Due to the temperamental nature of the 200s, popping caps in the power supply every so often, I finally gave up and sold them and took the ARC way, retaining my JPL preamp till around 2014 when I sold it as well. About...
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