Stereophile: Phantom Gold Review

[streamy]

did i read he played DXD files ?

He mentioned that he was using Roon to stream directly to the Phantoms. This so far only works over Airplay, which is fine for up to CD quality music, but Hi-res is down converted to CD quality in Roon. He could easily have found out in Roon what signal path and transformation his DXD files made.

[daibaron]

Yes, i figured this out. Transcoding is the only way to play to a DxD on a Phantom... and is not bit perfect anymore.

[ogs]

It is not a very good review, I agree - and there are no measurements. That is very disappointing

[Rodrat2]

I think we have to accept that they are Marmite speakers and lets face it not many people who have just shelled out several grand are going to take to kindly to others slagging off the product. This suggests that the buyers have made a flawed choice. I love my Silvers and they are very convenient. I have better speakers and have owned better speakers but this is based on my preference and someone else listening may not agree.

[ragwo]

There's a lot of off topic chatter in the review, and little about the speakers. A bit disappointing.

[Marcner]

It is not a very good review, I agree - and there are no measurements. That is very disappointing

As a long-term Stereophile reader, I could have told you, if you expected a gushing review, you would be disappointed. There are other reviewers that would have been much more dismissive. The format is a little odd for Stereophile, not their usually in-depth review format, seems that he stepped into the review sideways. Even the formatting and presentation in the magazine is different than is usual for hardware reviews.
To keep things in perspective, although he doesn't detail associated equipment as reviewers usually do, just the cabling(power cord, interconnects and speaker cables) in the system he comparing the Golds to likely cost at least as much as the Golds.
He is not writing for the general public but the "audiophile community" a fringe community of generally well-heeled listeners who tend to obsess about each piece of hardware and who are mixed at best about computers, DSP, streaming and other forms of "progress' intruding into their listening experience.
Despite picking some nits, I think his conclusion is that the Golds are "a serious value for the right customer." I agree.

[ogs]

I know how Phantom White sounds in my listening room. I quite liked them. I'll need to try Golds to know how they perform. I don't mind the points Jim Austin makes in his text, but I am not happy that this is a 'no measurement' review. We can only hope JA does one of his 'follow up' articles with a full set if measurements. Golds deserve this and we need measurements to be able to compare them to Kii and Dynaudio.
And the LS50 Wireless which I am sure will have measurements when a review appears in the future...

[alandbush]

We can only hope JA does one of his 'follow up' articles with a full set if measurements. Golds deserve this and we need measurements  to be able to compare them to Kii and Dynaudio.
And the LS50 Wireless which I am sure will have measurements when a review appears in the future...

The SoundStage review contained a set of measurements.

https://devialetchat.com/showthread.php?...2#pid67262

[ogs]

Thanks for the link. Those are nice measurements, but it is a bit difficult to compare as the Stereophile curves are different. Besides, the step response is missing. They only present amplitude response curves. To me the step response is maybe the most important.