So, I've had Mr. Singh's speakers now for over a week now and I'm
prepared to pass along my impressions of the speakers.

First of all, some background.

The room is 16 X 14 X 9.5 feet. It's carpeted. One side wall (the
right) has a permanent opening about 6 feet wide by 8.5 feet tall. the
wall behind the speakers has a permanent opening of about 3.5 feet
wide by 7 feet tall in the dead center of the wall. The walls are
cheap "fake wood" paneling and there's a single sized window on the
left side wall with horizontal louvers. On the back wall behind the TV
is the record rack, which covers the wall from the corner to the
previously mentioned opening in the back wall. On the right side is an
equipment table. Directly in front of the TV is the turntable, on a
low spiked amp stand and to its right is a subwoofer with the
receiver, Dish network receiver, and DVD player on top. The subwoofer
has been disconnected for the term of the testing. There is a sofa on
the opposite wall to the system and two 7 foot tall bookcases between
the window and the record albums. Distance from the sofa to the TV is
about 9 feet. The room is a bit crowded and, while not dead, certainly
isn't a lively room. There's very little overhang if you perform the
clap test.

Even considering the unusual placement of openings, this is a pretty
good sounding room, although it would obviously be considered only an
average sized room. I happen to think that coupling the room directly
to two other rooms via the openings smooths out the FR a little.
That's just my own opinion though.

As to my musical orientation, I listen to a pretty wide variety of
music and I tried to choose good examples of different things to test
the range of the speakers. I used both CD and LP. I also tried some
things that I knew had certain deficiencies as well just to see how
they were handled by the speakers, including music that you wouldn't
normally think would be well-served by them. I decided not to evaluate
movies and I've stuck only to music.

Here's the basic system:

Denon 2802 receiver. ProJect One Turntable/Grado Black. Panasonic DVD
RV31 DVD/CD player. Sony 200 disc player. Theta ProGen 3/EAD T-7000
transport. Micromega Stage 5 CD player. I used various interconnects
but I really don't want to get into that ball of wax.

This wasn't a test of CD players, so I tended to use what was
convenient, although I tried to use the various CD players at
different times. I also used the Fisher X202 tube integrated amp and I
will mention it specifically when applicable.

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

http://www.belgaudio.com/kcmap.htm

They are rated at plus or minus 5 dB 38 to 17,000 Hz with 3% max total
modulation distortion. They are tested as being pretty smooth from
about 25 hz to 20,000 kz however. The CD8s are rated down to about 39
hz - 3dB and 33 hz -6dB. They, like the Europas have an 8 inch woofer,
but they also have a 3 1/2 inch midrange. The CD8s are 4 ohm speakers.

Here are the specs for the Europas:

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

Trotsky supplied me with a set of stands, since I don't have any need
for stands in house. These stands are just that, stands. They have no
particular worth from an audio standpoint as they are just made of
pressboard or the like, although they *do* have spikes and they *do*
get the speakers at the height that they need to be at. They seem to
be the stands in the photos on the web site.

I started by just putting them in front of the Cornwalls for the first
couple of days and playing various things through them, mainly just to
get an initial *very* general impression of their "sound". I did this
because I was waiting for the stands to arrive and I didn't want to
move the Cornwalls out until I was ready to go. As it turned out, the
position that they ended up in for the remainder of the test wasn't
that far from where I set them up initially. However, of course, there
was a pretty big difference since the Cornwalls *are* bulky and kept
the speakers from having a lot of depth and air.

Once the stands got here, out went the Cornwalls. I started the
process of placing the speakers. I started out only about 2 feet from
the rear wall (or, more precisely, the records and equipment stands).
They sounded OK but not particularly tight and focused. I was
expecting this as they were almost parallel to the rear plane of the
TV. As I moved them in, I noted an improvement in both imaging and
balance. I was not willing to move the TV out of the room for the
tests. I think this is fair, since these speakers will be used by many
in just such a HT type situation.

Due to the position of the TV and the "subwoofer stand", by necessity
the speakers are *not* placed equidistant from the side walls. I can't
quite bring the right speaker in as much as I'd like. I can only bring
it in about 13" from the side wall (and there's an opening in that
wall anyway). The left speaker has to be in about 25" from the
bookshelves on the left side (and they are 13 inches deep as well). I
tried having the left speaker about the same distance from the
bookshelves as the right speaker is from the wall, but they didn't
image well spread that far apart. So I brought the left speaker in
closer to the center of the room and the image "locked" into place.
what this does however is shift a center-positioned vocalist a little
to the left. This happens with the Cornwalls as well due to the
displacement caused by the bookshelves. I've long ago acclimated
myself to it and adjust my perception accordingly.

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 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.

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.

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. This might be
considered an indicator of the basic "accuracy" of the speaker as it
certainly doesn't cover up that flaw. Nor does it blow it out of
proportion.

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. I have no such bad excursions
with the Klipsches (the Belgian web site explains this as a function
of the "self dumping" nature of the woofer below 20 hz - I assume
they're referring to damping), or at least none that I've noticed.
Associated with this was a funny phenomenon. I put on The Grateful
Dead's Wake of the Flood, which I didn't know had a warp (not super
bad but bad enough to drive these woofers crazy) This wouldn't have
bothered the Klipsches because I've played it through the Klipsches
and didn't notice the warp. Well, the excursions literally knocked a
portion of the stuffings through the port! It was like the speaker was
sticking its tongue out at me. But have no fear, I tucked it back in
and all returned to normal.

Now that we've got the negative stuff out of the way, let's talk about
what the speaker does right. The speaker, despite what I've previously
written *is* well-balanced in general. There are no glaring problems
with the sound as you find in some speakers. It's neither
"thin-sounding" nor "boomy". I think that it certainly approaches a
lean, agile sound (unless you're playing loud rock and roll, and
still, certain types of rock and roll are well served - I'll get into
that later). The speakers are especially pleasing with brass and
cymbals/bells/chimes. The tweeters have bite without being biting or
harsh. The speakers image well. There's a coherence to the sound that
was pleasing to me. Voices and instruments were placed where I
expected them to be (within the room limitations that I've previously
mentioned). With the exception of the lack of deep bass, the speakers
portray a reasonable sense of "slam". Make no mistake though, these
speakers WILL NOT reproduce a rock concert realistically.

I like the sense of air that the speaker imparts to the music,
especially acoustic music. The soundstage seems about what I would
expect considering the limitations of my room. Once the speakers are
positioned optimally, the image does tend to fall into place.

In part 2, I'll be talking about specific music and how I perceive the
speaker when playing those specific pieces. This has gone on too long
already. Hopefully I'll get this part sent by Tuesday at the latest.

I wanted to get this out fairly quickly and I'm actually writing this
before I get the chance to compare with the Cornwalls and the
Allisons. That will come in part 3 later in the week. Who knows, I
might modify some of my impressions when I get the chance to do that.
The problem has been one of time for me. I've been working sort of day
on day off in the last week and I haven't been able to string a couple
of days off together until now.

Finally, to close out this part of the commentary, my thoughts on
Greg's prose on the web site:

"So what's the bottom line?

"The sound quality is tremendous".

I would say that the sound quality is impressive for a first effort.

"The Europa has a zippy, dynamic quality that speakers costing ten
times as much often can't equal".

I disagree. Of course, you can probably find some speakers costing ten
times as much that don't match the "zippy, dynamic quality". But you
might be able to say that with any number of "inexpensive" speakers in
the price class of the Europas as well as finding similarly priced
speakers that will hold their own with the Europas.

Quads for example are quite a bit better, to my mind (talking about
more expensive speakers of course). However, I'm not above saying that
the Europas, while not necessarily giving them a run for their money,
would *not* fare badly in a direct comparison.

"It also has a neutrality from top to bottom that is exceptional".

I think that I've already addressed this.

" Bass guitar notes sound like bass guitar notes".

I don't disagree. I just think it's a "smaller" version of them. The
Europas *do* maintain a measure of the richness of a good bass guitar
though. If this sounds contradictory, I apologize. They need to go
lower or be augmented by a subwoofer to really offer the bass response
that I think is necessary for reasonably loud material, or even to
portray acoustic bass instruments like tubas or string basses with the
requisite realism that they deserve.

"Runs on a piano don't hit "sour spots" in the frequency response. The
tweeter response is crisp and articulate",

I would absolutely agree with this verbiage regarding the tweeter.

"with a wide open sound that is very fun to listen to".

Once again, agreed EXCEPT for the tendency to thicken in the upper
bass/lower midrange that I mention in the body of my evaluation.

"The woofer, while being very accurate, also has a robust quality to
it that produces bass that is very tight and authoritative".

Only to a point. The nice thing about the bass is the fact that it's
never "woolly" or "soggy". And watch those dastardly subsonics.

" And these speakers don't have the typical "goose" in the high
frequency response that is often equated with high end sound, thus
lending themselves to extended listening sessions".

I would agree that the high FR is quite "lively" without being
overblown. Brass has the bite that you expect from brass without being
"spitty" or "brittle".

" Lastly, they are an easy load to drive, with above average
efficiency, thus allowing for a wide range of electronics. But make no
mistake: the better the electronics the better the Europas will
sound".

No quarrels here. I'm looking forward to seeing how they sound with
the Fisher tube amp. I'd love to hear them with some truly high end
gear.

Sorry for the length.