I bought a set of these from Bizkit last year on his black Friday deal. My Initial thoughts were: Very laid back, sweet sounding speakers,but try as I might I could not get them to sound like I wanted them to.I was so used to the Mission MX4's very forward in your face type of sound, the Missions just seemed to kill when it came to any instrument with strings,however I could hear there the Bentley's thoroughbred sound buried away waiting to get out. But how?
For months on end I moved the speakers around and eventually ended up with them in their final resting place which happens to be exactly where the Missions sounded best, so they had to make way for the big boys. Still things were not perfect and I kept going back to the Missions, anyway to cut a long story short I had a feeling a bit more power was required than my CX-A80 could supply, so I was on the look out for something a bit more powerful, enter the Precision Acoustix Pre and Power amp which I bought from Sweetsound (Stef) on this forum.
I first hooked up the CX-A80?s pre out to the power amp and was pretty much faced with the same sound as before, I then decided oh well let?s just connect the pre back to the power amp again and voila, synergy!! The Bentleys came alive and I could at last hear what I think other?s must be hearing when they rave about these speakers. I can only describe the sound as an all encompassing,big, buttery, but detailed with tight bass ( after fitting bungs to the ports), vocals are unbelievably clear and once again I could hear strings properly defined.
The only downside is these speakers are a bit to tall for my room which is 4.3m by 4.8m and hence e there was a hole in the midrange at my listening position, so I experimented a bit and with the help of a cushion under my backside and angling the speakers downwards slightly improved the midrange and brought the soundstage into focus. The next step will be to remove the bungs and experiment with a few more bass traps and panels to fine tune things.
All in all these are really amazing speakers and I believe the end game for me, the Missions get played now and then, but have pretty much become obsolete now and to top it all the amps and speakers are all proudly South African. Thanks to the guys from Bentley who built these gorgeous beasts and to Bizkit (Morne) who made them available at a very special price.
Dave
For months on end I moved the speakers around and eventually ended up with them in their final resting place which happens to be exactly where the Missions sounded best, so they had to make way for the big boys. Still things were not perfect and I kept going back to the Missions, anyway to cut a long story short I had a feeling a bit more power was required than my CX-A80 could supply, so I was on the look out for something a bit more powerful, enter the Precision Acoustix Pre and Power amp which I bought from Sweetsound (Stef) on this forum.
I first hooked up the CX-A80?s pre out to the power amp and was pretty much faced with the same sound as before, I then decided oh well let?s just connect the pre back to the power amp again and voila, synergy!! The Bentleys came alive and I could at last hear what I think other?s must be hearing when they rave about these speakers. I can only describe the sound as an all encompassing,big, buttery, but detailed with tight bass ( after fitting bungs to the ports), vocals are unbelievably clear and once again I could hear strings properly defined.
The only downside is these speakers are a bit to tall for my room which is 4.3m by 4.8m and hence e there was a hole in the midrange at my listening position, so I experimented a bit and with the help of a cushion under my backside and angling the speakers downwards slightly improved the midrange and brought the soundstage into focus. The next step will be to remove the bungs and experiment with a few more bass traps and panels to fine tune things.
All in all these are really amazing speakers and I believe the end game for me, the Missions get played now and then, but have pretty much become obsolete now and to top it all the amps and speakers are all proudly South African. Thanks to the guys from Bentley who built these gorgeous beasts and to Bizkit (Morne) who made them available at a very special price.
Dave
