Originally Posted by
slip023
So, I ended up buying three Duo V2 in black matte for LCR. I went way over budget, but I am glad I did. I bought the speakers on a Thursday just before noon and they were shipped out the following Tuesday. UPS fudged my delivery, so I received my L & R speakers that Friday, and the center the next day. I spent that Friday listening to my favorite movie scenes and music in 2.1 configuration.
I remember debating if I should go with a phantom center but my tests with my old speakers (Andrew Jones’ Pioneer Elite EBS73) were underwhelming, so I decided I definitely needed to have a center. When I did the same test with my new Duo V2s I was in awe. It was so different, it sounded like I had a center channel, even when seating a little bit off center. I was thinking that maybe I should’ve just ordered two speakers!
Saturday came around and I put the center channel inside my cabinet, where my old Pioneer center lived. I redid Audyssey XT32 and put on some shows. It sounded worse than my phantom center. I was confused. I looked at the Audyssey results and the measurements looked weird. Like really bad. Something must’ve been wrong; these speakers can’t measure that bad even in my room. So, I re-did the calibration, and the before/after response graph looked much better.
Now we’re talking. Movies sounded great, awesome. But I couldn’t shake off the feeling that the center sounded so localized. Like I could tell the sound was coming from the speaker, not the TV, like my old Pioneer did.
So, I bought a speaker mount so I could mount the center speaker over the TV. That way it would be closer to the screen, and it would be “floating” in the air, not constrained inside a cabinet. I redid Audyssey, before/after measurements looked even better. I put on Dune (2021) and enjoyed the whole movie.
My 3.1 system sounds soooo good now. I have a Rythmik F12 and three Duo V2 powered by a Marantz SR6012. I always thought “I wish my home theater sounded as good as my earbuds (1MORE’s Quad Driver In-Ear Headphones)”. Yesterday I was listening to Rihanna’s Lift Me Up with my earbuds and just thought “wow, I miss my Duos, they sound better than these earbuds” and it just clicked! Wow, I had finally achieved what I’ve always wanted. These speakers just sound so good. I can’t really explain what it is. It’s like the sound has texture now, I don’t know if that makes sense. It’s just so clean and clear and open. It has something extra, and I don’t even know what this “something extra” is. It just sounds dazzling.
I (probably) found my end-game speakers. I don’t think I’ll ever get the speakers upgrade bug again (famous last words?). And to upgrade my system’s weakest link, the receiver, I just bought a Lexicon RV-6 and I’m waiting to receive it. Dirac Live should be the cherry on top.
I will post some pictures later.