Estelon Extreme A work of art
- Thread starter jpetek
- Start date
I saw this on wizards site a few nights ago.
I have heard the next model down and second model from the bottom.
The Extreme should be well worth a listen.
This company seems to be getting it right.
Hi...this came from one of the other threads (Munich 2014)...in fact, I asked the question as well, and this was Barry's response:
Thanks for the reply I hope I get to hear them some day. I thought they should be be special after hearing the other two models my dealer has.
These estelons were in the room with the Vitus at Munich. I have heard another Vitus Estelon (smaller speakers, the 27k range) at Windsor, UK last September. That sounded better, probably because of the room. This one was good too, that front part for the midrange can be moved up and down by a remote, so you can adjust the speaker vertically rather than only along the floor to suit your room
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No vested interest (not one of my brands) but I had the standmounts on extended loan recently and they were absolutely stunning. Ultra transparent and they totally disappeared. Tone, balance, driver integration also spot on. Would love to hear the Extreme.
I had an opportunity to hear the Extremes. I also had an opportunity to meet Alfred, the designer and founder of Estelon and his 2 daughter who I believe work in the business and who kindly walked thru the Extremes in some detail, demonstrating how it is designed and works to adjust to a room. All very passionate about audio and about their design.
The Estelon design (to me a non techie) seems to reflect some key design priorities: adjustability to the room for speaker-room interaction (5 vertical for tweeter thru mid bass and 3 horizontal for tweeter dispersion), narrow baffle with curves and a marble composite material to help eliminate the cabinet vibration or cabinet presence near the cones, and finally the latest diamond and ceramic drivers to ensure as pistonic performance under duress as possible. The final element is that Alfred separated the cabinet into 2 parts which are inverted and sit atop each other with connections that absorb and help isolate vibration from traveling between the two. ( the bottom cabinet also sits on 5 custom Stillpoints Ultra 5s by the way).
By having the dual bass drivers in the bottom cabinet, cut off above 70hz he felt the frequency we cannot locate are stationery...while the frequencies above this can move up or down with an automatically adjusting curvature to the the height adjustment to keep the speaker cones in proper alignment at all times. focal and Wilson I think have something similar.
I think what I enjoyed most about the sound (ML amps, Vitus CD) was that it reflects something I have observed about really only the very latest generation of speakers...a true lack of mechanical hash, noise...which presumably is driven by wanting to match the recent jumps in electronics and isolation. The noise floor was very impressive and the speaker also reflected another attribute I see relatively more often now in cone speakers...coherence.
Really very special..though no doubt it helped to have Alfred himself tuning the speaker.
I think the amplification may not have been what they wanted to show with the speakers but the venue was not entirely in their control...I would have loved to hear what these speakers can do with massive Vitus amps in terms of all out dynamics.
Priced well below XLFs in his country (140k vs 225k) I think all out dynamics was really the only element where I don't know if I heard the full measure of the speaker to my satisfaction. I would love to hear it again with huge full Vitus setup to be sure since that was apparently their original plan for demonstration.
I could certainly see someone settling into this speaker for a long long time. It gets out of the way, exceedingly quiet, very coherent such that I enjoyed both macro and micro dynamics in the music without any sense of emphasis or bias in the speaker.
The Estelon design (to me a non techie) seems to reflect some key design priorities: adjustability to the room for speaker-room interaction (5 vertical for tweeter thru mid bass and 3 horizontal for tweeter dispersion), narrow baffle with curves and a marble composite material to help eliminate the cabinet vibration or cabinet presence near the cones, and finally the latest diamond and ceramic drivers to ensure as pistonic performance under duress as possible. The final element is that Alfred separated the cabinet into 2 parts which are inverted and sit atop each other with connections that absorb and help isolate vibration from traveling between the two. ( the bottom cabinet also sits on 5 custom Stillpoints Ultra 5s by the way).
By having the dual bass drivers in the bottom cabinet, cut off above 70hz he felt the frequency we cannot locate are stationery...while the frequencies above this can move up or down with an automatically adjusting curvature to the the height adjustment to keep the speaker cones in proper alignment at all times. focal and Wilson I think have something similar.
I think what I enjoyed most about the sound (ML amps, Vitus CD) was that it reflects something I have observed about really only the very latest generation of speakers...a true lack of mechanical hash, noise...which presumably is driven by wanting to match the recent jumps in electronics and isolation. The noise floor was very impressive and the speaker also reflected another attribute I see relatively more often now in cone speakers...coherence.
Really very special..though no doubt it helped to have Alfred himself tuning the speaker.
I think the amplification may not have been what they wanted to show with the speakers but the venue was not entirely in their control...I would have loved to hear what these speakers can do with massive Vitus amps in terms of all out dynamics.
Priced well below XLFs in his country (140k vs 225k) I think all out dynamics was really the only element where I don't know if I heard the full measure of the speaker to my satisfaction. I would love to hear it again with huge full Vitus setup to be sure since that was apparently their original plan for demonstration.
I could certainly see someone settling into this speaker for a long long time. It gets out of the way, exceedingly quiet, very coherent such that I enjoyed both macro and micro dynamics in the music without any sense of emphasis or bias in the speaker.
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Thanks Lloyd.
I spent a couple of hours listening to them in the afternoon and and I found your review very accurate.
Played Let it Bleed, Nashville Skyline - The Girl from the North Country with Dylan and Cash was awesome, Modern Cool and Julia Fischer Bach Partitas and Sonatas and they were extremely impressive on all the tracks. As you say the venue's restrictions on cabling etc meant that we were not able to hear them at their very best and I am in no doubt that with better cabling and amplification they would be up there with the best and very competitively priced.
I spent a couple of hours listening to them in the afternoon and and I found your review very accurate.
Played Let it Bleed, Nashville Skyline - The Girl from the North Country with Dylan and Cash was awesome, Modern Cool and Julia Fischer Bach Partitas and Sonatas and they were extremely impressive on all the tracks. As you say the venue's restrictions on cabling etc meant that we were not able to hear them at their very best and I am in no doubt that with better cabling and amplification they would be up there with the best and very competitively priced.
Yes, I think price must be taken into consideration here, because in a way they are in between the Maxx 3s of this world and the uber Q7, Arrakis, Genesis of this world. This pricepoint (140K) is occupied by the limited edition Magico M7s, Gryphon Pendragons (at least here in UK)...its a funny one once currency and cross-border pricing comes into effect.
A pair of SF Strads is GBP32K or something in UK (Sasha territory??) but its north of $50K in the US (Alexia territory) which really skews decisions and people's determination of the 'value' of the speaker.
Back to Estelons, I will say that I would probably take them over the mighty Maxxes, after of course spending much more time with them...just an instinct at the moment. The other one, the Gryphon Pendragon, I have not heard, but as 4-tower speakers that harken back to the IRS V and Genesis 1s...I would guess that is quite a competitive price-performance package at least here in UK/Europe.
Again, assuming the standard currency gross up in the US, the Estelon Extreme and Pendragon would be north of $200K in the US making them more the competitor of the XLFs there...(btw, XLFs are USD$380K in UK).
A pair of SF Strads is GBP32K or something in UK (Sasha territory??) but its north of $50K in the US (Alexia territory) which really skews decisions and people's determination of the 'value' of the speaker.
Back to Estelons, I will say that I would probably take them over the mighty Maxxes, after of course spending much more time with them...just an instinct at the moment. The other one, the Gryphon Pendragon, I have not heard, but as 4-tower speakers that harken back to the IRS V and Genesis 1s...I would guess that is quite a competitive price-performance package at least here in UK/Europe.
Again, assuming the standard currency gross up in the US, the Estelon Extreme and Pendragon would be north of $200K in the US making them more the competitor of the XLFs there...(btw, XLFs are USD$380K in UK).
Extremely positive feedback from Absolute Sound...enjoy the read...
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/art...sletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=email-259
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/art...sletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=email-259
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