04-Mar-2019, 20:30
I had a brief listen to a single Reactor on Saturday. A shop in town had it on display together with the three Phantom models.
I now understand what the 'missing' midrange is about. The front 'full range' is actually just a rather large tweeter. So very little real mid range there. To compensate the side woofers produce parts of the (lower) mid range. I put an ear close to one of the woofers and could hear quite a lot of mid range from it. The woofers are not ideal mid range drivers and as mids are more directional the side placement create a strange effect on some recordings.
In comparison a pair of Golds had a proper mid range reproduction. Of course it is not fair to compare a single Reactor to a pair of Golds, but it also made the difference quite clear.
Attempting to define a cross over frequency for the Reactor without measurements will be just speculation so I'll skip that
I still think Reactor is good. The tiny size and prodigious bass output is really impressive! With the right placement (much better than in the shop) and maybe stereo I am sure one can get good results.
I now understand what the 'missing' midrange is about. The front 'full range' is actually just a rather large tweeter. So very little real mid range there. To compensate the side woofers produce parts of the (lower) mid range. I put an ear close to one of the woofers and could hear quite a lot of mid range from it. The woofers are not ideal mid range drivers and as mids are more directional the side placement create a strange effect on some recordings.
In comparison a pair of Golds had a proper mid range reproduction. Of course it is not fair to compare a single Reactor to a pair of Golds, but it also made the difference quite clear.
Attempting to define a cross over frequency for the Reactor without measurements will be just speculation so I'll skip that
I still think Reactor is good. The tiny size and prodigious bass output is really impressive! With the right placement (much better than in the shop) and maybe stereo I am sure one can get good results.
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Devialetless!
Roon, ROCK/Audiolense XO/Music on NAS/EtherRegen/RoPieee/USPCB/ISORegen/USPCB/Sound Devices USBPre2/Tannoy GOLD 8
250 Pro CI, MicroRendu(1.4), Mutec MC-3+USB
Devialetless!
Roon, ROCK/Audiolense XO/Music on NAS/EtherRegen/RoPieee/USPCB/ISORegen/USPCB/Sound Devices USBPre2/Tannoy GOLD 8
250 Pro CI, MicroRendu(1.4), Mutec MC-3+USB