I've got the Audio Bronze 100 with Denon 600 amp, they are exceptional at female vocals, great accoustics and lower end bass, great for films and tv as well.
For anyone in the US that is interested, Crutchfield is having a big sale on speakers, and here's a few- the JBL A130 for $200, the Jamo C91II for $200 and C93II for $250 (those are both half price), the Elac B5.2 for $215 and B6.2 for $250, the KEF Q150 for $350, the MA Bronze 50 for $440 and the Bronze 100 for $540, and the Elac UB52 for $450. There are more, including many floorstanders, those are just a few examples. Also, the R100 is $650 and the R200 is $750. I can't see why anyone wouldn't spend the extra $100 for the R200. And, there's a new baby version from the JBL Classic series, the L52, a two way with a 5" woofer for $1000 a pair.
Thanks. Some of those Crutchfield prices have gone back up a bit. Not sure about the Jamo's. Doubt it as they've been at that price for weeks. I think the Jamo C93 ii's are a very nice sounding speaker, and at $250 a great value. It's a speaker I'd put on par with the Wharfedale 12.2. Better in some ways. Slightly less tonaly nuetral but really not too different. Livelier, more energetic than them or the Polk Reserves, clear and defined as hell, a nice textural quality and fast impactful bass. The Elac UB52 are another pretty nice speaker and good deal at $450. Hope we get some tests of those here, as E said.
I much prefer the Bronze here. The R100 still sounds distant and hollow. I setup my laptop with three tabs open, so I could quickly toggle between this video, and the one with the 12.2 and R100, and the one with the 12.2 and the R200, all with the Arcam amp. And, the 12.2 sounds exactly the same in both of those videos, and the R200 sounds as great as always, so it's not any difference in the recording setup that's causing the R100 to sound so poor. It's just clearly very inferior to the R200 and the 12.2, and even the Bronze, at least with this amp. I'm still trying to find the video comparing the R100 and R200. Ok, I finally found the video comparing the R100 and R200, and so I now have 4 tabs open to toggle through to quickly and easily compare the sound, and, in all the other videos, the R100 sounds just like it does here, proving, that to my ears anyway, it's clearly inferior to the 12.2, R200, and even the Bronze, at least with the Arcam. It may sound different with a Cambridge AXA or AXR, or the NAD 316, but I knd of doubt it
Watching this again, I see something (a DAC maybe?) sitting on top of the Arcam in the Polk clips, but not in the MA ones. Is the internal DAC being used with the Bronzes, and an external one with the Polks?
Comparing the R100 to Bronze 100 is not very honest. The MA100 has a 20cm woofer against a 13cm. For the test to be fair, the Bronze 50 must be compared against the R100. However, here the R100 reveals that its capabilities show a lot of performance in tonal balance, neutrality, as well as the finesse of the treble above the MA bronze 100
considering the R100 -- would need a sub with it -- would be willing to pay the extra (for the sub) if I thought the mids and highs were better. These videos are interesting but not a great help to me cause I don't have anything neutral here to play them on.. EDIT it's also difficult to interpret the comparison when I know one has _much_ more base than the other
On audiophile songs, they are both good, but once there are compressed rock guitars, MA is a mess(even half the price Elac debut beats them), while Polk still articulate and clear.. And yes, MA plays wider, but everything everywhere, that is not real soundstage when there is no separation. Dont get me wrong, MA Bronze 100 WAS great, but not rly matching Kef Q quality, then newcomers Heco aurora, wharfedale diamond 12.2, and these Polks are just different league(Dali Oberon is honorary mention, while least accurate of these, but probably most fun of them all).
Why this amp seems to make the Polk Reserves sound so dry and lifeless in the upper mids and highs compared to everything else, I'm not sure. They are understated there in general to me, but the R200 at least is much more with the SA-10. No surprise the MA's are brighter and more revealing up top than the R100's here, but less filled-in in the low midrange. E Project, can we get a demo of the R100's with another amp? How about the SMSL DA-9 with the R100's and the 12.2's. That may answer some questions about what this Arcam is doing.
Funny, I don't hear that. I think the R200 sounds very lively with the Arcam, but not the R100. How about one of the Cambridge CXAs, AXAs or AXRs, the Rotel, or a NAD, instead of the SMSL? Or perhaps, with a few other amps, including a Cambridge, a NAD, the Rotel, and the SMSL
@@DougMen1 At this point I wanna hear the R100's compared to the 12.2's with any another amp, to hear how much that large contrast between them with the Arcam is reduced. The SA10 initially gave an impression of being pulled back in the mids, but clear and open in the treble, but the Polks don't even really sound open in the treble with it, even when other speakers seem to. That's why I asked for the DA-9, because we heard that its comparatively brighter in the midrange and close in the treble to the the Arcam. Doesn't need to be the DA-9.
Neither sounds good, MAs are heavily colored in midrange and lower treble, Polks are more refined but not exciting. Between these two I'd get SAVE MONEY AND BUY SOME GOOD SPEAKERS lol.
What in the world is happening here...? They both sound nearly the same on Time Travelling in the vocals, male and female and that is near impossible. The Arcam is either taking away too much mids from the R100 or its filling in the mids for the Bronze in other parts of the mids or both. This Arcam is wrecking or improving things dramatically compared to other amps which shows how coloured it is. Its a make or break type of amp, if it matches your speakers youll be good to go but if it doesnt, youll be regretting the purchase. This is why I mentioned an amp shouldnt be coloured and should stay along the lines of being as neutral as possible, it will screw up your purchase decisions easily. Get a speaker to suit your taste, not an amp. If you want a v shaped bright and lively sounding speaker, go bronze. If you want something neutral go 12.2 or r200. Just dont buy an amp to suit your taste, it will be a poor financial decision.
That's ridiculous! It's the synergy between all the parts of a system, and how they all sound together that matters. No amp, speaker, or source is perfect. They all color the sound to some extent. The important thing is to match the source, amp and speaker together to achieve the sound quality you like. You're also forgetting that once ANY speaker is connected to ANY amp, it becomes an active part of the output stage of that amp, because musical signals are AC, which means that current flows from the amp TO the speaker, and also back FROM the speaker TO the amp. So, you can't predict how ANY amp will react to ANY speaker until you try it! Electronics 101. You need to read some technical papers about amp damping factor and speaker's back EMF. The Audioxpress website has a very good 4 part article on loudspeaker back EMF. To break it down into simple terms, back EMF can be inductive, resistive, or capacitive, depending on the phase angle it causes, and we all know (or should know) that inductive and capacitive impedance and phase angle can and does affect the frequency response of any amp/speaker pairing. After all, that's how passive speaker crossovers work. From a discussion on the Klipsch community forum- "the back EMF of the woofer significantly affects the sound quality of the midrange/tweeter, the louder you play the speakers, the worse it gets (disproportionately)" Perhaps the Arcam is more sensitive to back EMF than other amps, especially possible if its output is directly coupled to the speaker, with no coupling caps between the output transistors and the speakers. I had a Kenwood KA7100 in the 70s that was a very beefy dual mono design, and was DC (direct coupled), which makes for much cleaner sound and faster bass with less phase shift. It was one of the cleanest and best sounding amps I ever had. The real drawback to those type designs is if the amp fails, then DC voltage can get to your speakers voice coils with no caps to block it, which will freeze them and your speakers are toast
@@DougMen1 i have always noticed you liked coloured sound and if thats the case, great. If you like it, its all good and thats your choice. But I can show you easily that it is not neutrality that you like and thats fine. Its just that when you are trying to defend what you like and try to put it under 'neutral' is when things become unacceptable. Wouldnt it be good to just say "hey, I like a v shaped lively sound" or "I like amps with a little boost at so and so frequency to give it that extra bit of sparkle or and warmth"? Put the most neutral amp next to this and you will see why I call this coloured and its coloured to the nines. You really do not understand that synergy / component matching is a totally different subject and has nothing to do with what Im talking about here. All this talk about emf is all just irrelevant to this matter. If i were to get everything neutral in my system and only depend on the speaker to suit my personal taste, wouldnt it be much easier for me to pin point what is actually going on if I were to dislike/like something? Speakers are the hardest to get neutral, amps and dacs are not, not in 2021. I know you like the arcam and r200 pairing a lot, but over and over again it has been proven that it is the arcam that is making the r200 sound unlike itself, even the bronze and 12.2. And I can predict, EASILY, how a neutral amp and speaker would sound like. I have a problem with the Arcam, I do not like it one bit for what it does because my goals are different to yours. I have my opinions and you have yours, and my opinion is the arcam is the fakest sounding amp on this channel to date. Its ok to have a different opinion.
@@quananginh9446 this is the only time youll ever hear the mids on the bronze stand out more than the r200 or 12.2. Not even in dreamland will the bronze have more pronounced mids with neutral sounding amps. Amps do not sound drastically different (and dacs for that matter) when they measure how they should in all aspects, an outlier like the SA10 will stick out like a sore thumb among those amps.
@@AbsoluteFidelity That's hogwash too. I like gear that brings music to life, and sometimes it's gear that is neutral and sometimes it isn't. There's a lot more going on than the simple measurements that you think you understand, and when I present you with actual science that you don't understand, then you dismiss it as being irrelevent because it's beyond your comprehension and/or doesn't agree with your bias. That's downright childish and ignorant, which is what you do every time you're presented with actual facts that go against your preconceived notions. FYI, there are amps and speakers that measure neutral that sound great and others that measure neutral that sound like shit, but you're even unwilling to admit that, because that would be admitting that there's a lot more going on besides simple freqeuncy response graphs, things that are beyond your comprehension and that you don't understand, and in your mind, admitting that would mean you aren't perfect, and that you're human, just like everyone else
![[Sound Battle] Polk Audio Reserve R100 vs Wharfedale Diamond 12.2 w/Arcam SA10 Integrated Amplifier](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/t4R1zva0iSU/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Sound Battle] Polk Audio Reserve R100 vs Wharfedale Diamond 12.2 w/Arcam SA10 Integrated Amplifier](/img/tr.png)
![[Sound Battle] Revel Concerta2 M16 vs Kef R3 / Peachtree Nova 300/Integrated Amp/Bookshelf Speakers](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/h8sjkFRfOno/mqdefault.jpg)
I've got the Audio Bronze 100 with Denon 600 amp, they are exceptional at female vocals, great accoustics and lower end bass, great for films and tv as well.
As I said before, I prefer the Bronze 100 with Arcam or NAD C388 / C368 to other speakers.
The Bronze 100 has a higher resolution than the others
What about r 100 vs bronze 50?I'm want to buy one or another but I don't find any comparison between the 2.....
The Bronze 100 are on sale now for $539 a pair at Crutch field..... Hmmm
Polk sounds like from inside a cubicle. And MA sounds like you opened the cubicles , viola there's the speaker
🤔🎧🎶🎶🎶🎶Bronze100 ✌🏻👍👍👍👍👍✌🏻🙂🇵🇱
For anyone in the US that is interested, Crutchfield is having a big sale on speakers, and here's a few- the JBL A130 for $200, the Jamo C91II for $200 and C93II for $250 (those are both half price), the Elac B5.2 for $215 and B6.2 for $250, the KEF Q150 for $350, the MA Bronze 50 for $440 and the Bronze 100 for $540, and the Elac UB52 for $450. There are more, including many floorstanders, those are just a few examples. Also, the R100 is $650 and the R200 is $750. I can't see why anyone wouldn't spend the extra $100 for the R200. And, there's a new baby version from the JBL Classic series, the L52, a two way with a 5" woofer for $1000 a pair.
Thanks. Some of those Crutchfield prices have gone back up a bit. Not sure about the Jamo's. Doubt it as they've been at that price for weeks. I think the Jamo C93 ii's are a very nice sounding speaker, and at $250 a great value. It's a speaker I'd put on par with the Wharfedale 12.2. Better in some ways. Slightly less tonaly nuetral but really not too different. Livelier, more energetic than them or the Polk Reserves, clear and defined as hell, a nice textural quality and fast impactful bass.
The Elac UB52 are another pretty nice speaker and good deal at $450. Hope we get some tests of those here, as E said.
I much prefer the Bronze here. The R100 still sounds distant and hollow. I setup my laptop with three tabs open, so I could quickly toggle between this video, and the one with the 12.2 and R100, and the one with the 12.2 and the R200, all with the Arcam amp. And, the 12.2 sounds exactly the same in both of those videos, and the R200 sounds as great as always, so it's not any difference in the recording setup that's causing the R100 to sound so poor. It's just clearly very inferior to the R200 and the 12.2, and even the Bronze, at least with this amp. I'm still trying to find the video comparing the R100 and R200. Ok, I finally found the video comparing the R100 and R200, and so I now have 4 tabs open to toggle through to quickly and easily compare the sound, and, in all the other videos, the R100 sounds just like it does here, proving, that to my ears anyway, it's clearly inferior to the 12.2, R200, and even the Bronze, at least with the Arcam. It may sound different with a Cambridge AXA or AXR, or the NAD 316, but I knd of doubt it
Maybe just the music, but the Polk seem to bassy which is over riding the mids perhaps .
Better soundstage for monitor audio and more détails.
Watching this again, I see something (a DAC maybe?) sitting on top of the Arcam in the Polk clips, but not in the MA ones. Is the internal DAC being used with the Bronzes, and an external one with the Polks?
That's Apple mini Mac(sound source) There are no external DAC in this clip. I just moved mini Mac at the side.
Comparing the R100 to Bronze 100 is not very honest.
The MA100 has a 20cm woofer against a 13cm.
For the test to be fair, the Bronze 50 must be compared against the R100.
However, here the R100 reveals that its capabilities show a lot of performance in tonal balance, neutrality, as well as the finesse of the treble above the MA bronze 100
But the price is similar ;)
considering the R100 -- would need a sub with it -- would be willing to pay the extra (for the sub) if I thought the mids and highs were better. These videos are interesting but not a great help to me cause I don't have anything neutral here to play them on.. EDIT it's also difficult to interpret the comparison when I know one has _much_ more base than the other
On audiophile songs, they are both good, but once there are compressed rock guitars, MA is a mess(even half the price Elac debut beats them), while Polk still articulate and clear.. And yes, MA plays wider, but everything everywhere, that is not real soundstage when there is no separation. Dont get me wrong, MA Bronze 100 WAS great, but not rly matching Kef Q quality, then newcomers Heco aurora, wharfedale diamond 12.2, and these Polks are just different league(Dali Oberon is honorary mention, while least accurate of these, but probably most fun of them all).
Why this amp seems to make the Polk Reserves sound so dry and lifeless in the upper mids and highs compared to everything else, I'm not sure. They are understated there in general to me, but the R200 at least is much more with the SA-10. No surprise the MA's are brighter and more revealing up top than the R100's here, but less filled-in in the low midrange.
E Project, can we get a demo of the R100's with another amp? How about the SMSL DA-9 with the R100's and the 12.2's. That may answer some questions about what this Arcam is doing.
Funny, I don't hear that. I think the R200 sounds very lively with the Arcam, but not the R100. How about one of the Cambridge CXAs, AXAs or AXRs, the Rotel, or a NAD, instead of the SMSL? Or perhaps, with a few other amps, including a Cambridge, a NAD, the Rotel, and the SMSL
@@DougMen1 At this point I wanna hear the R100's compared to the 12.2's with any another amp, to hear how much that large contrast between them with the Arcam is reduced. The SA10 initially gave an impression of being pulled back in the mids, but clear and open in the treble, but the Polks don't even really sound open in the treble with it, even when other speakers seem to. That's why I asked for the DA-9, because we heard that its comparatively brighter in the midrange and close in the treble to the the Arcam. Doesn't need to be the DA-9.
O casamento entre as Polk e Arcam é melhor.
As MA Bronze 100 ficam melhores com os Audiolab 600A, Rotel A11 Tribute, Marantz PM7000N.
el sacramento bole bole
the r100 are warm...the bronze not
The bronze sounds metallic and cheap. The Monitor Silver is better.
Neither sounds good, MAs are heavily colored in midrange and lower treble, Polks are more refined but not exciting. Between these two I'd get SAVE MONEY AND BUY SOME GOOD SPEAKERS lol.
R100, this is how flat response sounds from small speakers. Not much likable. not all technically good speakers sound good.
What in the world is happening here...? They both sound nearly the same on Time Travelling in the vocals, male and female and that is near impossible. The Arcam is either taking away too much mids from the R100 or its filling in the mids for the Bronze in other parts of the mids or both. This Arcam is wrecking or improving things dramatically compared to other amps which shows how coloured it is. Its a make or break type of amp, if it matches your speakers youll be good to go but if it doesnt, youll be regretting the purchase. This is why I mentioned an amp shouldnt be coloured and should stay along the lines of being as neutral as possible, it will screw up your purchase decisions easily. Get a speaker to suit your taste, not an amp. If you want a v shaped bright and lively sounding speaker, go bronze. If you want something neutral go 12.2 or r200. Just dont buy an amp to suit your taste, it will be a poor financial decision.
The vocals sound much more centered and forward on the Bronze 100.
That's ridiculous! It's the synergy between all the parts of a system, and how they all sound together that matters. No amp, speaker, or source is perfect. They all color the sound to some extent. The important thing is to match the source, amp and speaker together to achieve the sound quality you like. You're also forgetting that once ANY speaker is connected to ANY amp, it becomes an active part of the output stage of that amp, because musical signals are AC, which means that current flows from the amp TO the speaker, and also back FROM the speaker TO the amp. So, you can't predict how ANY amp will react to ANY speaker until you try it! Electronics 101. You need to read some technical papers about amp damping factor and speaker's back EMF. The Audioxpress website has a very good 4 part article on loudspeaker back EMF. To break it down into simple terms, back EMF can be inductive, resistive, or capacitive, depending on the phase angle it causes, and we all know (or should know) that inductive and capacitive impedance and phase angle can and does affect the frequency response of any amp/speaker pairing. After all, that's how passive speaker crossovers work. From a discussion on the Klipsch community forum- "the back EMF of the woofer significantly affects the sound quality of the midrange/tweeter, the louder you play the speakers, the worse it gets (disproportionately)" Perhaps the Arcam is more sensitive to back EMF than other amps, especially possible if its output is directly coupled to the speaker, with no coupling caps between the output transistors and the speakers. I had a Kenwood KA7100 in the 70s that was a very beefy dual mono design, and was DC (direct coupled), which makes for much cleaner sound and faster bass with less phase shift. It was one of the cleanest and best sounding amps I ever had. The real drawback to those type designs is if the amp fails, then DC voltage can get to your speakers voice coils with no caps to block it, which will freeze them and your speakers are toast
@@DougMen1 i have always noticed you liked coloured sound and if thats the case, great. If you like it, its all good and thats your choice. But I can show you easily that it is not neutrality that you like and thats fine. Its just that when you are trying to defend what you like and try to put it under 'neutral' is when things become unacceptable. Wouldnt it be good to just say "hey, I like a v shaped lively sound" or "I like amps with a little boost at so and so frequency to give it that extra bit of sparkle or and warmth"?
Put the most neutral amp next to this and you will see why I call this coloured and its coloured to the nines. You really do not understand that synergy / component matching is a totally different subject and has nothing to do with what Im talking about here. All this talk about emf is all just irrelevant to this matter. If i were to get everything neutral in my system and only depend on the speaker to suit my personal taste, wouldnt it be much easier for me to pin point what is actually going on if I were to dislike/like something? Speakers are the hardest to get neutral, amps and dacs are not, not in 2021. I know you like the arcam and r200 pairing a lot, but over and over again it has been proven that it is the arcam that is making the r200 sound unlike itself, even the bronze and 12.2.
And I can predict, EASILY, how a neutral amp and speaker would sound like. I have a problem with the Arcam, I do not like it one bit for what it does because my goals are different to yours. I have my opinions and you have yours, and my opinion is the arcam is the fakest sounding amp on this channel to date. Its ok to have a different opinion.
@@quananginh9446 this is the only time youll ever hear the mids on the bronze stand out more than the r200 or 12.2. Not even in dreamland will the bronze have more pronounced mids with neutral sounding amps. Amps do not sound drastically different (and dacs for that matter) when they measure how they should in all aspects, an outlier like the SA10 will stick out like a sore thumb among those amps.
@@AbsoluteFidelity That's hogwash too. I like gear that brings music to life, and sometimes it's gear that is neutral and sometimes it isn't. There's a lot more going on than the simple measurements that you think you understand, and when I present you with actual science that you don't understand, then you dismiss it as being irrelevent because it's beyond your comprehension and/or doesn't agree with your bias. That's downright childish and ignorant, which is what you do every time you're presented with actual facts that go against your preconceived notions. FYI, there are amps and speakers that measure neutral that sound great and others that measure neutral that sound like shit, but you're even unwilling to admit that, because that would be admitting that there's a lot more going on besides simple freqeuncy response graphs, things that are beyond your comprehension and that you don't understand, and in your mind, admitting that would mean you aren't perfect, and that you're human, just like everyone else
Fake test!!