Thought I'd start a new thread and add my thoughts as the speakers breakin some.  The RL's have about 20 hours on them now.  And the bass is coming, it's tighting up a bit and goes a little deeper now.  Still don't have consistance through the whole range yet but they show promise.  I am runing the RL's with what I consider to be top notch gear.  Dodson 218 DAC, Dodd Audio 120 watt el34 monos and a transcendent GG pre.  As I have mentioned in another thread here I have purchased a Transcendent Sound Super compact pair of mono blocks.  I am upgradeing the parts and will have them cryoed before puting them into my system.  They will be approx. 100 watts through two (PP) octal base 509 II's.  If this works out I will have my whole system cryoed maybe even the drivers, will have to talk with Bob Z. first.  Guy

Hi Chris,  the imaging is coming along as well.  Sometimes its spooky good and other times its just average.  Everything kinda comes and goes right now.  Which is why I thought it would be a good time to tweak my equipment and let the speakers break in.  I keep compareing them to my K-horns, the K-horns imaged good but not great or great but you had to be in one spot to get it.  But what they did excell at was the effortless sound, they sound live and load the room to perfection.  Also being tuched in the conners they didn't take up much room.  I will let the speakers run this week while I'm at work this should put enough time on them.  As always thanks for you thoughts and encouragement.  All the best, Guy

I cut out 2 x 7" circles from an old sheepskin rug and placed them under each RL3. This introduced about an inch of fleece under the passive radiators and I then rejigged the RL3s' placement and toein. This resulted in the taming of all the bass issues I talked about.

Well, tonight has been a bit of a watershed for my RL3 experience:
Superb soundstaging, clean bass and weight and authority to all instruments. Pretty much an out of the body experience and not noticing hifi my listening to music. Just simple getting connected with the performance.

The system of Audionote CDT2 + Ack dAck + CSP + F1 and the RL3 was working superbly together with the anticables, anti inters.

playntheblues,

I can't be totally accurate on how long the the RL3's have been running but I've had them for about 18 days and played them around 3 hours a day - so it's been on in my system at least 54 hours. I understand from Ziggy that they've been running on his system for an additional 100 hours.

I'll try to give some further details as I go along but for the moment I'll give an indication of yesterdays experience. From time to time, I've got together a set up that puts me in the "zone". It's the space where the sounds/instruments/voices are hanging in the air but most significantly, I'm NOT noticing these qualities but just listening and enjoying the music. I feel connected to the music and the performer.

I've had this experience before with a couple of my other set up:
1) My Maggies with ATC SIA150 and Meridian CDP
2) My Hornshoppe Horns with Decware Select, Meridian as transport and SN DAC
3) My Hornshoppe Horns with the F1, Passive Pre and Audionote CDT2 + Ack dAck.

My current setup got me the feeling of being in the "zone" last night but this time with more apparent accuracy and "body".

The bass of the RL3s is plenty low with the F1 pushing them. It may be a running-in issue. What kind of music are you playing to need that level of bass? What dB level do you nomally play at?

The rumbling in the chest bass that has been reported doesn't exist in 95-98% of my collection. Only one or 2 CD's have that and only certain tracks.

Maybe you should get yourself an F1....  :)

Two more days until my cyroed tube mono's show up  :D from the fed-x man.  YAHOOOoooOOooOoooooooooooooo

One more day until the amps touch down

Hey George,  First I have to say if you get the chance to cryo your equipment run don't walk!  The Radials to me are truly magical at volumes of 90db or lower.  I don't think there is a speaker that can beat them.  

I am going over to a friends house hopfully today with my amps and DAC ( Dodson 2 1 8 ) and we are going to hook them up to is K-Honrs.  This will be the final comparison for me.  I may find the horns to sound bad after listening to the Radials for a month now ???  But you know how it is I remember all the good things the K-honrs did and probably have forgotten the bad points.  

For 90% of my listening the Radials are GREAT,  the only issue I have is when I what to hit the volume, turn my amps to 11 (spinal tap) LOL  IMHO the speakers fade quickly

Bob Z has spent a lot of time with me on the phone (thank you Bob) and we have talked about adding a WO or WO32 to releave the Radials at about 50 hz but I am starting to think that would be a waste.  They sound wonderful down to about oh I would guess 35 hz, as long as you don't turn them up to high.

Audio is a journey thats for sure and we all take different paths.  The most important thing is that we enjoy our journeys.  I will report back once I have heard the K-horns again.  All the best, Guy

George, I sent in my mono block amps, pre amp, Dodson DAC, Tice power conditioner, All cables, power cords, interconects and a handful of CD's and DVD's.  They charge 9 dollars a pound but if you go over 100 pounds that rate is droped to 5 dollars a pound.  My total was about $800.00 that includes shipping both ways.  I had about 130 pounds or so.  I have spent a lot more and gotten a lot less on other things FOR SURE!

I can't begin to tell you how much of an improvement it is.  Everything is VERY musical.  It just flows and there is no back ground noise at all.