The '25' Club...........

Mikado463

Mikado463

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Anybody joining ??

arendalsound.com

1528 Tower 8 - LIMITED 10th ANNIVERSARY EDITION

A rare rosewood masterpiece, crafted to celebrate a decade of Arendal Sound. Be One of 25 Ten years ago, we set out to change what people could expect from a loudspeaker to strip away the noise of…
arendalsound.com arendalsound.com

While I have never heard the brand personally, I've heard plenty good about them. If they sound / perform as good as they look they might just be the 'bargin of the year' ?
 
Lots of new innovative speakers hit the market recently. Perlisten, Arendal, Monacoustic and others. I have heard one model of the Perlisten but it seems many of the new releases are direct buy only. I am really interested in one of the Arendal 1723 series subwoofers, great app control and lots of configuration options. The longer they are on the market the sooner we will hear forum reviews of people who took the leap of faith and ordered.
 
I own the 1528 Bookshelf 8's and they are fabulous. The are replacing my Magnepans. The weigh 66 pounds each and are really stand mount speakers. They are the first speakers to fill my room (17x17 with 9 foot ceilings) like my Maggies. They present with a huge scale. The sound stage is deep, very wide and tall. They have excellent detail, clarity and resolution. The sweet spot is wide. They would be able to fill a room that is bigger than my room. Bass is off the hook. It is like having two 8" subs. In room bass response is below 20hz so they are a full range bookshelf speaker. They are neutral sounding. They are very dynamic and musical. They also have great air and transparency. The 1528's are a remarkable speaker. The price just went up $700 due to tariffs. They now sell for $5200 pr. They would sell for almost twice that in store. The build quality is superb. I have mine in the white finish and they are just beautiful.

They do require some power to drive properly as they are rated 84.5db sensitivity and 4 ohms.

They also have a great return policy. You have a 60 day trial period and return shipping is free. I got mine with a $450 discount as they were a return pair and they are flawless. I took a leap of faith and bought them without hearing them knowing that I could return the heavy beasts. I was considering the Monitor 8's but they are 100 pounds each and would have overpowered my room. The Floor Standers are around 170 pounds each and they would need a huge listening area as they are huge.

I have mine paired with my new Mark Levinson 5805 integrated amp. I had been running them with my Pass X250 amp (just sold it) and my BAT preamp which I will be selling.

My only complaints are the weight and I wish they had a little warmth. I was able to warm the sound up a bit by switching all my interconnects and speaker wire to Duelund 16g IC's and 12g speaker wire. I also upgraded to Aurdivana Studio which has a warmer tone then 3.14 that I was using. Now they sound sublime.

If anyone lives in the Twin Cities area, they are welcome to come by for a listen.
 
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I'm not looking to replace my Sopra 3's with these, but I admit I'm strongly considering the Arendal 1723 sealed subwoofers to augment the bottom octave. Shame they just discontinued the gloss finishes on all of their subs, though - that would have been a nearly perfect visual match for my Carrara white Focals... A 1528-series sub would be even better! The hard part, as mentioned above is the "leap of faith" to buy-before-you-try. The generous return policy eases that anxiety somewhat, though.
 
2FlyingYorkies said:
The hard part, as mentioned above is the "leap of faith" to buy-before-you-try. The generous return policy eases that anxiety somewhat, though.
Click to expand...

agreed, the 60 day trial and the ease of return, IMO all but eliminates the 'leap of faith' ! Besides, when one bases a buying design solely on listening in a Brick & Mortar showroom there is going to be in all probability differences with ones own listening room, equipment , etc.

If I were in the market for 15-20k speakers right now, I'd jump on these in a heartbeat.......
 
Mechnutt said:
I own the 1528 Bookshelf 8's and they are fabulous. The are replacing my Magnepans. The weigh 66 pounds each and are really stand mount speakers. They are the first speakers to fill my room (17x17 with 9 foot ceilings) like my Maggies. They present with a huge scale. The sound stage is deep, very wide and tall. They have excellent detail, clarity and resolution. The sweet spot is wide. They would be able to fill a room that is bigger than my room. Bass is off the hook. It is like having two 8" subs. In room bass response is below 20hz so they are a full range bookshelf speaker. They are neutral sounding. They are very dynamic and musical. They also have great air and transparency. The 1528's are a remarkable speaker. The price just went up $700 due to tariffs. They now sell for $5200 pr. They would sell for almost twice that in store. The build quality is superb. I have mine in the white finish and they are just beautiful.

They do require some power to drive properly as they are rated 84.5db sensitivity and 4 ohms.

They also have a great return policy. You have a 60 day trial period and return shipping is free. I got mine with a $450 discount as they were a return pair and they are flawless. I took a leap of faith and bought them without hearing them knowing that I could return the heavy beasts. I was considering the Monitor 8's but they are 100 pounds each and would have overpowered my room. The Floor Standers are around 170 pounds each and they would need a huge listening area as they are huge.

I have mine paired with my new Mark Levinson 5805 integrated amp. I had been running them with my Pass X250 amp (just sold it) and my BAT preamp which I will be selling.

My only complaints are the weight and I wish they has a little warmth. I was able to warm the sound up a bit by switching all my interconnects and speaker wire to Duelund 16g IC's and 12g speaker wire. I also upgraded to Aurdivana Studio which has a warmer tone then 3.14 that I was using. Now they sound sublime.

If anyone lives in the Twin Cities area, they are welcome to come by for a listen.
Click to expand...
I took a look at the website, and I couldn't believe the specs - the 1528 bookshelf, stand-mount and tower share very similar numbers when it comes to frequency response, with the graphs screaming "ruler-flat". Very impressive!
 
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