The Sound
Daedalus states that these speakers are 96 dB efficient,
which is a remarkable claim. I cannot refute it, and in the aspect of
listening where that most matters – headroom - I believe it. These speakers
effortlessly handled whatever amount of power and volume I threw at them.
The sound never broke up or became incoherent, no matter how much I cranked
it. That’s the second time I’ve mentioned cranking it in this review, and
that's what I did with these speakers. Given the unorthodox design,
I was
prepared for something that reproduced acoustic instruments well, but that
couldn’t handle rock. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In both my
two channel system and in my home theater, combined with the Center One, at
any volume level, the DAs were incredibly consistent in presenting a
coherent musical picture. A picture of live music.
I found myself trying to find the densest, most
demanding material in my collection to see if there was something that was
beyond the reach of these speakers. I never found it. The gold standard in
dense music is the band Curve. Female vocal, constant, heavy feedback
guitars, more guitars, synthesizers, bass guitars, drums, drum machines, all
conceived at the intersection of rock, industrial and shoegazer. This is my
vote for the best band ever, but I don’t listen to them as much as I would
like, because most of their music is available on CD only at this point (they
were active in the 90s), and it becomes very fatiguing.
The DA-1s never
heard of fatigue. They sorted out the dense mix of Curve and left me looking
through my collection for another CD that I don’t play enough.
I had a similar experience with Juliana Hatfield’s new
CD Made In China. I once resolved to learn guitar by learning songs that I
liked. I wanted to start with something that I thought was simple three-chord
rock. I bought the sheet music for an earlier Hatfield classic "Only
Everything". First song: 17 chords. Needless to say I didn't learn guitar,
but I appreciate this music and her musicianship all the more. The Daedalus
DA-1s really had the sound of a live performance. From a sonic perspective,
it was as though I was seeing Ms. Hatfield and her band in a small club,
where the volume level was set just right for a change, and the acoustics
were amazing instead of atrocious.
I
want to expand a bit on this. I listened intently to the DA-1s to try to
figure out why it is that they should sound more like a live performance
than many other speakers. I would say that part of it is that these speakers are
not dark. Not that they are too bright, see below where I talk about the
tweeter switch. It's just that they are not dark. A black background is
something that I have praised in other speakers, and I probably will do so
again in the future. The DA-1s don’t have that. The upper midrange
especially is quite full. But there was nothing there that didn’t belong
there. As I drilled in with my best critical ears, everything I heard
sounded right. As I would imagine the recording engineer intended or even
better, as I imagined this band would sound if I listened to them live.
I've recently been tweaking my reference speakers with
a ridiculous, external baffle to extend the front plane of the speaker and
hopefully eliminate diffraction. I can’t explain why this visually
obtrusive project has had the greatest effect on CDs, but it has.
Vinyl
playback, which was already good, was not changed much. The Daedalus DA-1s
have a similar story. CD playback was so good and non fatiguing that there is
not a big difference with vinyl. It was still great, but not the big
difference from CD.
This is where I first started playing with the tweeter
tuning switch on the back. Of the three choices, lets call them 'more',
'neutral', and 'less', because the switch is not labeled. I found that I
preferred 'more' and 'neutral' for CD playback and 'less' for vinyl. Seems
like it should have been the other way round given CD's potential for edgy
high frequencies, but this is what I found. That's why the switch is there,
it's up to your ears.
It's not a huge effect by the way. Way less than you
would get if you happened to have a preamp with tone controls for instance.
One other thing about those tweeters, because each
speaker has two, with the offset in direction between them, the sweet spot is
huge. Or there just is no sweet spot, take your pick. There was no bad place
to be in my 12' by 17' listening room.
My home theater room is smallish, roughly 10' by 13'
with only a 7' ceiling, and only one opening. Yes it's the dungeon of
entertainment. Lou was worried that even the two DA-1s with the Center One
would overwhelm the room and create bass modes, so I did not audition the
available matching surround speakers. I was able to avoid unwanted bass
modes with what I did have, however. Probably because of the oversize futon
and shelves, and slight variation from a straight rectangular room. This was
good because as before, I cranked it.
There is a new DVD from Rush, R30,
commemorating 30 years as a band. If you ever liked Rush, I really recommend
this DVD, even if you've been disappointed by previous live Rush releases as
I have been. The Daedalus setup really made me forget that I was listening
to a system and just let me enjoy the music.
With movies too, dialogue was more relaxed, the sound
of it wasn't an issue, I just watched the movie, got into it more. I noticed
at one point that it seemed like my screen was bigger. That is the home
theater magic, good sound makes the picture "better".
Conclusions
These speakers are not cheap. At nearly $7k for a pair
of DA-1s and an additional $4,400 for a Center One, if you can afford these,
you have a lot of choices. But, I heartily recommend that you put these on
your short list, especially if you have a big room accommodating many viewers or
listeners. Daedalus has roots in speakers for public address systems – used
by musicians - and that experience is what led to the DA-1s and the Center
One. These speakers did an incredible job of not just filling the space I
had, but filling it with music.
- Rick Schmidt -
Associated Equipment
Mitsubishi
WS-65908 HDTV
Analog source: Nottingham SpaceDeck
Digital sources: Cambridge Axur 540D, Naim CDX
Preamps: Edge,
Arcam AV8
Amps: Edge M4, Outlaw 770
Speakers: GoldSound Kit #9