Phantom's 'House Sound'?

[MountainGuy]

For those of you who own a pair of Phantoms, two questions: 

1. How would you describe the Phantom's house sound?  (i.e. cooler vs warmer, transient speed slow/normal/fast, etc.) 

2. If you don't mind sharing, what other speakers & amps do you currently run which can give us a context for the comments for #1. 

3. One more for good measure..... Did you notice the Phantoms 'breaking in' after a few dozen or hundred hours?

Thanks!
MtnGuy

[alandbush]

Hi,

I owned a pair of 'old' (1990s) ATC 50 actives updated to SL spec together with tweeter upgrades over the years.
I guess I liked them    but a pair of Silver Phantoms has now replaced them.  Make of that what you will.

I have a rectangular living/dining room, 9m x 3.5m, with an archway between the two rooms at the midpoint.
The speakers are set at this midpoint, firing lengthways into the living room and the listening position, 3m away, which is 1m in front of a bay window.

The sound?  As precise, clear and fast as the ATCs but with the ability, in my room, to go very much louder without stress.
The bass, in particular. is phenomenal but I do use a MiniDSP EQ unit to fashion a house curve to control the bass excesses.
I have been trying out the many tracks mentioned on various threads/sites that excite the woofers and taken them to levels that I would never have dared to do so with the ATCs.
nb - I used this EQ unit to do the same with the ATCs but the bass range never approached the Phantoms. I could provide the REW FR curves of the two if that is useful.
Nevertheless, the bass does not dominate or overshadow the midrange or high frequencies.

As for break in, the speakers are so different to the ATCs that it took some time to understand just how to use them.
That may seem a weird thing to say but it took me time to have the confidence to really push the volume, relax and enjoy them.
As a result, any break in would have been obscured by my changing listening experience and expectation.

Hopefully, you will be able to demo a pair soon after the upcoming US launch.

[Rodrat2]

I have perhaps played mine for 50 or 60 hours and they have become more open after sounding a little shut in at first. I would describe them as neutral. I have owned or do own PMC, Quad, Linn, Infinity, TDL monitors, Magnepan, Meridian and various other makes both passive and active. They are not the best at everything but overall give more as a single package than any other I have owned. I have heard better speakers but only at many times their price not including the amplification. As with any speaker they are room dependent especially in the lower frequencies. It has taken a while to get used to their base response. They are very revealing of source and a crap recording will be very obvious. I would say they are quite fast in that they boogie along. I am toe tapping a lot more than usual and even dance a bit when nobody is watching. They have been given my spouses approval which is far more subjective than my own.

[MountainGuy]

WHOA!  You can insert a MiniDSP in the chain?  Does one take the OPTICAL or USB output from one's source (i.e. computer) and run through the MiniDSP and then connect via OPTICAL/USB to the Phantom's box?  If so, that is great news.  I though that there was no way to to EQ on the Phantoms and would want to do that to tailor to room responses. 

Thanks to the both of you for your replies. 

MtnGuy

[quote pid='18638' dateline='1433692787']
Hi,

I owned a pair of 'old' (1990s) ATC 50 actives updated to SL spec together with tweeter upgrades over the years.
I guess I liked them    but a pair of Silver Phantoms has now replaced them.  Make of that what you will.

I have a rectangular living/dining room, 9m x 3.5m, with an archway between the two rooms at the midpoint.
The speakers are set at this midpoint, firing lengthways into the living room and the listening position, 3m away, which is 1m in front of a bay window.

The sound?  As precise, clear and fast as the ATCs but with the ability, in my room, to go very much louder without stress.
The bass, in particular. is phenomenal but I do use a MiniDSP EQ unit to fashion a house curve to control the bass excesses.
I have been trying out the many tracks mentioned on various threads/sites that excite the woofers and taken them to levels that I would never have dared to do so with the ATCs.
nb - I used this EQ unit to do the same with the ATCs but the bass range never approached the Phantoms. I could provide the REW FR curves of the two if that is useful.
Nevertheless, the bass does not dominate or overshadow the midrange or high frequencies.

As for break in, the speakers are so different to the ATCs that it took some time to understand just how to use them.
That may seem a weird thing to say but it took me time to have the confidence to really push the volume, relax and enjoy them.
As a result, any break in would have been obscured by my changing listening experience and expectation.

Hopefully, you will be able to demo a pair soon after the upcoming US launch.
[/quote]

[mirekti]

I mentioned in another thread that Spark should be more flexible and give some interface (at least limited) to Phantom's DSP.
MiniDSP is a very neat workaround, though.
I am still waiting for Devialet to give more details about mid range and HF drivers used. At the moment, that would be the 2nd thing after DSP EQ I'd want to see improvement. Obviously, the latter one is hardware so it couldn't come without being a new release. Phantom Diamond ;-)

[alandbush]

WHOA!  You can insert a MiniDSP in the chain?  Does one take the OPTICAL or USB output from one's source (i.e. computer) and run through the MiniDSP and then connect via OPTICAL/USB to the Phantom's box?  If so, that is great news.  I though that there was no way to to EQ on the Phantoms and would want to do that to tailor to room responses. 

The MiniDSP10x10HD has a digital input and output (AES/RCA/Optical) and can work the way you describe.
i am sure there are cheaper units that forego the analogue inputs/outputs.
I currently use the analogue inputs to serve the two pairs of Phantoms in a surround system.
The front pair via the optical digital out and the rear pair from an analogue output pair converted to optical.
The MiniDSP allows me to direct the Centre input to the left and right front, to create a phantom centre, and also allows me to direct the sub/LFE to all four Phantoms!!!  Awesome.

Of course, this will not be seen as ideal as there is additional analogue/digital conversion and it must be noted that the 10x10HD only works upto 48kHz.  Still, it is a working solution, for me, until the Spark software changes for surround are delivered sometime in the distant future.  Would it be too much to ask for a software change to add EQ as well?