dave weil wrote:

Nice - though the three CD players are kind of overkill. For this
level of speaker, it probably won't make a bit of difference.

I also had available a pair of Klipsch Cornwalls, which are the
speakers normally in this system and a pair of Allison CD8s from the
bedroom. The Cornwalls are a 3 way large horn driven system with
compression horn drivers for the midrange and tweeters and a 15 in.
woofer in a large cabinet. Specs and graphs for the speakers can be
found he

Ack.

They are rated at plus or minus 5 dB 38 to 17,000 Hz with 3% max total
modulation distortion.

Exactly. I'd not use these as a comparison myself, but if that's
all you've got, I understand. Most of aren't overflowing with money
like Arny apparently is. (sic for the impared)

Shoot - my old JBLs are approaching ten years. Yikes, time flies.

Here are the specs for the Europas:

http://www.jupiter-audio.com/pages/europa.html

But enough of all of that. Let's get to the character of the sound,
speaking non-specifically at first (I'll be talking about specific
pieces of music later).

First of all, I value a deep bass, but it has to be round without
being flabby, taut without being drawn and pinched and powerful with a
sense of slam but not overbearing. Maybe these descriptors sound
contradictory, but I think that most music lovers know what I'm trying
to impart. The problem with the Europas is what you'd expect from just
about any relatively small bookshelf ported speaker with an 8 inch
woofer. It just doesn't go as deep as you need to be really
"realistic". In this respect, I have to quibble with Greg's statement
that they are "neutral". I think he's confusing "neutral" with "lean".

I did some cabinet volume calculations myself and came up with a simple
problem. He needs more volume for an 8-inch driver. He's hamstringing
the poor thing to 6 incher results. Either get larger volume or go
for a faster, tighter 6-7 inch speaker.

My recommendation would be a deeper cabinet with a trapezoidal or
simmilar design - as they not only look different(selling point),
but also halp with standing waves. Why most makers still make a
rectangular box is beyond me. We all know this hurts the sound.

There's no reason for his speakers to be that shallow unless he's
making them to be wall-wounted.

I understand what he's trying to say, since many speakers tend to go
overboard with the bass, trying to hit deep notes with the subtlety of
a sledgehammer. The Europas offer a very nice bass response up to a
point. What bass is there is everything that I treasure in a speaker.
However, it falls short when it comes to the foundation necessary to
create a "lifelike" image. The bass approaches the Quad standard more
than it does the Cerwin-Vega standard (to give an example of an
egregious offender). But this isn't Quad bass. Sorry. It just doesn't
quite approach the richness and "palpability", to use a well-worn
catchword, that I remember from Quads.

Not surprizing. It's too big for the box and has no breathing room.
A simple set of calculations in any software out there(or even on
a napkin) would have told him that.

Me? I'd personally love to see a bookshelf with a 35hz low end so
that a sub is optional. This would be a large speaker, but his
driver could probably go down to 35hz without much problem.

Another problem with the speakers is one that you would expect with a
two-way design. The upper bass/lower midrange gets blunted or a bit
"congested" somehow. You don't notice it as much with combo jazz or
classical but with rock and roll or things with substantial energy in
that region, the impact is lessened and things start sounding
cluttered.

Tough to build a 3-way, but worth it. He should really listen to the
Athena S3s - they are small 3-ways that are very good sounding. The
8-incher is there for bass only and the midrange is clean. Cleaner than
a Tannoy MX-2 or several others I tried. Sounds identical in quality to
the Mirage smaller towers, but in a bookshelf sized package.

Either that, or since he shipped stands - um - why NOT go for the real deal
and make a tower speaker? Plenty of room there, and no stands required.
Since his speakers require a stand, why not make an integrated stand
and use the volume to help the bass response? Nothing huge, mind you-
just the same dimmensions as his speaker is now, but 3 ft or so tall.

Another negative isn't really a negative of the speaker. If the source
material tends toward the sibilant, this speaker will exacerbate that
tendency slightly. Note the word *slightly*. It's not nearly
objectionable as other speakers I've heard in the past.

Probably the ribbon tweeter. These are really picky and hard to
tame beasts. Quality control at the low-end is such that he'd
probably have to hand-pick 2-3 out of every dozen to actually use.

The final negative is the somewhat unregulated nature of the woofer.
It is *very* prone to subsonics. Frankly, I don't have my Denon manual
handy and I've been unable to find the subsonics filter on the thing
(I assume it's buried in a damn on-screen menu somewhere). When I play
LPs, there are some wild woofer excursions at higher volumes, but I
haven't been able to pick out any particular degradation in the bass
at those levels once the music starts.

My guess would be the woofer isn't getting enough air/volume and gets
into a bandpass-type cascade.

Note that most of my comments have been about the poor cabinet volume
and design. That's fixable, btw. Spend $25-$50 more on the cabinets and make
a small tower instead. Keep the price the same.