Arke and i have been chatting for some time now. Actually, since around April time. As most will remember, i went to Jasons place a few weeks back to get a listen to the Troels Gravessen Etka MK2 that he built.
Since then, I have been waiting for the return fixture with a fair bit of excitement and anxiety. The aural memory of the sound we managed to achieve at Jasons with his speakers and my electronics still lingers in the mind, and with good reason! I think it is still, up until today, the best sound I have heard from anything I have listened to…..but could we recreate that phenomenal sound in my room?
Most of you have been on this forum long enough to know that speakers are the one area that have caused me the most issues. It’s a smaller room, lots of reflective surfaces, T&G floor…it has crushed many a pair of “legendary” speakers. On the odd occasion that a speaker has managed to be listenable in this space, they were usually lacking one or more of the key components of my desire from music. LF control, resolution, transparency, neutrality, accuracy and the most important…Believability.
Music that convinces…..That's all i wanted!
Eventually after many false starts, the last resort for me fell in the shape of a pair of Q Acoustics Concept 500. High drivers from the floor to avoid exciting the floor, reports from German HiFi mags of a transparent and neutral sound…I bought them, and they worked fairly well in the room. Certainly better than anything I had managed to put in there previously.
Knowing that the room is a speaker killer, I never dreamt of trying anything else. “Change the room” became the mantra, until the cost of living crisis became the latest in a long line of finance destroying issues to prevent a garage conversion. Eventually, my dream of a garage conversion collapsed. I decided to make the best of my space here. Firstly by adding some room treatment.
The room treatment has, IMO, made the room WAY more acceptable. I think It probably increased the sound quality by 30% just by using some fairly basic rockwool panels. I felt fairly sure that this was as good as I was going to be able to do in this space.
The impending visit of Jason really had me feeling like it was probably just a waste of time. The Etka were big speakers, they delivered incredible LF energy in his room, so i was fairly sure we weren't going to get them working in this space. That said, i felt i had done as much as i could to try and help them work here, in fact, as he pulled onto the drive, i was just finishing hanging the last "on the piss" acoustic panel over the glass on the doors behind the speakers.
After a little chat, some tea and a few slices of jam on toast, we got to work.
First up, we listened to the system as is: Parasound, BT2, 686, Q500’s
I played a GOGO Penguin track and the system did ok…pretty much just about ok. The GGP track isn’t something i listen to really, but i like it as a test track. However, the system didn’t have the soundstage organisation that we got from the same track (on vinyl) at Jasons. Not a great start.
Jason commented that the LF of the Qs was too much, and I agreed. However, as I pointed out, I don't generally listen to bass heavy music. My preference for acoustic guitar, solo singers, maybe some 50’s swing….they don't really cause the same issues with the Q’s.
Knowing that Parasound has a rather bombastic approach to some music, I swapped to the more refined Holo Spring 3 DAC that I had loaned from Alan. We tried again. It was better. More immediate, better control…ok, it's better.
Jason suggested that we try some DIY bass traps he had brought with him. Thick rolls of foam with tape wrapped around…defo DIY, but exactly what I'd do lol. We tried again and yeah, better again. The LF was tightening up, the mids were becoming clearer. It was certainly getting into a level of SQ I hadn't got from this track so far. We played a few more tracks to get the ears in tune.
Once our ears were ready, Jason fetched the Arke Standmounts in the car, so we put them in next.
They do look sensational in the flesh. The stands have a real beauty due to the two tone finish and the weight of the speakers is ridiculous. I think they were 15kgs. Superbly made, rock solid cabinets....wow.
The Arke Standmounts had failed to impress me on the first audition at Jasons house. There was some midrange distortion, sounded recessed and generally lacked transparency….not today!
In they went and “holy Sh#t…..what have you done to these?”
They absolutely tore through the same GOGO Penguins track. Lighting fast, highly resolving, see through midrange, and the LF!….where do they get the sheer amount? and then to be able to control it like they do?! I have absolutely no idea.
Jason tells me it’s the mid-bass driver. It is well known for this type of performance, and wow…yes it is!
Jason will explain about the changes he made to the Arkes inbetween the occasions I heard them, but suffice to say, it's worked!
We played some Yello and i have to say, it had never sounded so resolving, so tight, so grippy....the smaller speakers were obviously really working well in the space. They were displaying oodles of quality in the sound. There was something about them that led me to think “I'm gonna end up buying these”
This was a really eye opening performance from a standmount. Honestly, I didn't think they had that in them lol.
After listening to more of that genre, I moved to playing some of the material I like to listen to. The Acoustic guitar type. The Arkes did a sterling job of trying to create believable guitar tone, size and scale. I was pretty impressed with how they managed to sound like a much bigger speaker. The strings were snappy, with excellent attack and decay. Zero overhang. Baden Powell was particularly good, with really high quality plasticity in the nylon strings. I was severely impressed. Hans Theessink and Terry Evans had very good levels of tonal richness in their vocals, and it became an effortless listen.
The LF control really stood out to me. The one area of my system that I now feel needs the most improvement.
It was clear to me now that the room and the Q acoustics were a less than ideal match. Sometimes you need to hear something that hammers this point home, and those Arkes showed me that.
There were aspects of the Q’s that still won over for me, but lets be fair, it was all to do with scale and tonality…something that we couldn’t compare fairly due to the size of the Arkes. On balance, the Arkes were superb, and a genuine precursor to what was to come with the Etka.
Alan had popped in for an hour towards the middle of the Arke session, and i think it’s safe to say he was impressed by these "standout" standmounts.
Next, we plumbed the Etka in on top of the Townshend bars. Whilst jason collected the second one, i said to Alan “I really hope these work here, because if they do, you are going to lose your Sh#t”
The Etka had been so impressive to me at Jason’s that in my mind they were physically massive….but they are significantly shorter than the Q’s, which boggled the brain. They are not quite as deep IIRC, but they are about the same width.
The first 4 seconds of Yello played…..i looked at Alan and he mouthed “Oh my F@cking god”
He was right….Thats what i thought too.
I sat down and listened. There was no LF overhang in the room. Zero. These a bass heavy tracks that have always overpowered the room to a degree, but now there was absolute grip and control of the LF. Because of this, the soundstage was infinitely cleaner and more resolving. The midrange became "see through" and the soundstage now had depth and clarity to a degree that hadn't existed in this room, “until we tried the Arkes” I thought.
The double bass on GoGo Penguin started and stopped on a pin head. The HF was just WOW….Silky smooth, ultra refined, non fatiguing…just wonderfully natural. The midrange cuts a space in the air in front of you. Imaging is precise and focussed in the air. Sound didn’t cling to the speakers, the image was free to hang in the ether.
"Yeah, but you're listening to material that you don't normally listen to"….I hear you!!!
We played stuff i listen to, too.
Those characteristics didn’t evaporate with anything I threw at the speakers. I played Toto - Rosanna, then onto Nat King Cole, then Ocean Colour Scene, Starsailor, Eva Casidy, Rodrigo Y Gabriella, Cage The Elephant, Isaac Hayes, Yello, Hirokusuki, Weather Report, The War On Drugs, The Shins, INXS, SRV, Ray Lamontagne, Bayside, Stan getz…..Absolutely anything i could think of to trip them up..
The realisation hit that these speakers are entirely unflappable. EVERYTHING sounded utterly amazing. Not just “Oh yeah, they were pretty good”….it was HOLY F@CKING SH@TBALLS, I LOVE THESE SPEAKERS.
The resolution is insane. I have heard Isaac Hayes - Ellie’s Love Theme on four different systems now. Today I heard something I have NEVER heard before. I play The Beatles all the time…literally all the time, yet I was hearing tiny micro and macro reflections in the track "A Day in The Life" then at the end, I heard something I have never heard before. This continued for probably most of the session.
By the end, I couldn't let Jason take them home. They had to stay! I'm not sure if Jason was planning on selling them immediately, but it's one of those occasions where I felt this was something special. I had to have them.
The thing that really sold it to me was that the sheer quality of sound I heard at Jasons was replicated in my room today. Ok, the soundstage wasn't as large, but then neither is my room. I can't do anything about that.
The resolution, transparency etc, they all turned up. The LF control, the crystal clear mids and the detail is unparalleled by any other speaker I have heard in this space, or any other tbh. The only speakers I have heard that exhibited that same sort of clarity and resolution were the £20k TAD speakers I heard at MrC's place.
If a speaker was custom made for my room, then this is the design they would have been. Finally, the room and speakers work together well, and I love it.
So what of the Q’s?
Well, I have to admit that I really feel sorry for the Q’s. I now realise that having them in such a space, with the issues my room has presented, means they never stood a chance of performing as well as they can. I would be surprised if I got 50% of their capability out of them. They are obviously a superb design of speaker, with bags and bags of performance for the money, a really high quality build and are a speaker of immense quality.
My plan is to find them a really good home. One which allows them to work to their full potential.
Just a little point to make:
These Etka are not the standard Etka build on Troels Pages. They have extra reinforcements on the side and top and they have markedly uprated XO’s. IF you do want any info on exactly what Jason did to them, or what he can do for you, I would contact him directly.
