Every 2 or 3 months Valin has a mini orgasm about a recent "best" product. So now that he has heard a product better than the M5 he loved so much and was the "best ever" until a few months ago, I was waiting for him to go the full Meg Ryan on the Q5.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-bsf2x-aeE
What a disappointment! Back in '99 he wrote a great review of a speaker he loved. Great passion and ecstasy communicated here in the Soundlab M1 review -
http://www.soundlab-speakers.com/reviews.htm.
The Q5 review, however, is passionless. It justifies why he likes the product. But if he really loves the speaker and it is the "perfect speaker for him", the review should probably have more of a tenor of this auto review below, which not only communicates the excellence of the car with passion, but makes one want to take a second mortgage on one's house and surprise the wife with this beast in the garage!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703339304575240613832721630.html?mod=rss_Autos
Coming back to the Q5, it sounds like it is an analytical speaker with bass that is weaker than similarly priced cohorts. It is probably great for guys who want to hear the guy in the neighboring seat scratch his cojones, but will likely bore the music lover who wants to sit back in his chair and experience the musical event with all of its rapture. And because of that, it doesn't really belong in TAS, especially on the cover! Interestingly, Stereophile did not give the cover to Q5 while TAS did. Valin must be fully in control. Sounds like the $99K Rockport speaker reviewed in the same issue is the speaker that actually belongs in TAS and should have gotten the cover.
But hey, advertising dollars, politics, incentives, and power frequently trump things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-bsf2x-aeE
What a disappointment! Back in '99 he wrote a great review of a speaker he loved. Great passion and ecstasy communicated here in the Soundlab M1 review -
http://www.soundlab-speakers.com/reviews.htm.
The Q5 review, however, is passionless. It justifies why he likes the product. But if he really loves the speaker and it is the "perfect speaker for him", the review should probably have more of a tenor of this auto review below, which not only communicates the excellence of the car with passion, but makes one want to take a second mortgage on one's house and surprise the wife with this beast in the garage!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703339304575240613832721630.html?mod=rss_Autos
Coming back to the Q5, it sounds like it is an analytical speaker with bass that is weaker than similarly priced cohorts. It is probably great for guys who want to hear the guy in the neighboring seat scratch his cojones, but will likely bore the music lover who wants to sit back in his chair and experience the musical event with all of its rapture. And because of that, it doesn't really belong in TAS, especially on the cover! Interestingly, Stereophile did not give the cover to Q5 while TAS did. Valin must be fully in control. Sounds like the $99K Rockport speaker reviewed in the same issue is the speaker that actually belongs in TAS and should have gotten the cover.
But hey, advertising dollars, politics, incentives, and power frequently trump things.