As a fan of ProAc, I purchased a pair of ProAc R1sc from Air ( Stefan) about 3 years ago, and when Stefan ( the new agent of ProAc in RSA ) asked me for lending him the R1sc to introduce the ProAc sound to some members, I was more than happy to do so. Cut the story short, when I went to his place and collect my ProAc on Tuesday's evening, I took the opportunity to have a proper listen to his new design , Air speaker Mk3 ( https://www.avforums.co.za/index.php/topic,51166.375.html )
I brought my own CDs for the listening, I start it with Glenn Gould
Through 300B amp + Air Mk3, the Bach variation is so alive, definitely not a lullaby to make you sleepy, Mk3 is a detailed speaker that I can clearly hear Gould's humming with the piano playing, and the first few notes from the variation 1 show that MK3 is a fast sounding speaker, there's no hesitation on every note, I really enjoy this recording on MK3, if I didn't have time limitation, I could have easily finished the whole recording and not stopped at the variation 8.
Then I moved on to the Bill Evans' famous recording - Waltz for Debby, this is the album I'd listened more than 50 times. There's a lot of ambient sounds in the recording, the MK3 show its excellence on micro dynamic and reveal them with ease, in my experience, this is a indication of high sensitivity/impedance design which is quite rare for a modern speaker.
Time for some classical live recording - Haydn Cello Concerto
To me, the mid range is most important part of a speaker, a speaker perform poorly in the mid range will struggle to show fundamental tone & overtone of the string instrument, theMK3 show no difficulty to bring out the richness of the string sound.
This is another excellent recording that I use for testing the vocal, sound stage & low frequency extension, the vocal is very natural through MK 3, sound stage is good too, and the organ sound is clear & extended.
This is the album that I assume everybody all have one, I like to use it to test the balance, instrument positioning & brass instrument timbre, the MK3 is surprisingly good with brass instrument timbre, because I found the brass instrument timbre is either thin & screaming, or muffled & dull in most of the speakers I encountered, but MK3 is one of the few speakers that express brass instrument with metallic shinny sound without screaming. I was really impressed.
Finally, this is one of my favorite recording in the last 25 years. Leonid Kogan was a great violinist, this Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto recording of his is still my number 1 choice of the work. I always use it to test the speaker's ability of expressing the artist's emotion & insightful interpretation of the music. With the recording I found quite a lot of boring speakers that can play music loud, but it played this recording like a background music. But through MK3 ,when the last note of the 3rd movement stopped, I found myself was in a deep emotion linked to the music ....................... Then I realized this is not another ordinary speaker, what I was listened to is something special ( or almost "Unique " )
MK3 is not completely spec finalized and no one know how the final finish will be, but I really hope it will turn out to be a beautiful speaker inside out, and even become a successful product for export market. Well done, Stefan :thumbs:
I brought my own CDs for the listening, I start it with Glenn Gould
Through 300B amp + Air Mk3, the Bach variation is so alive, definitely not a lullaby to make you sleepy, Mk3 is a detailed speaker that I can clearly hear Gould's humming with the piano playing, and the first few notes from the variation 1 show that MK3 is a fast sounding speaker, there's no hesitation on every note, I really enjoy this recording on MK3, if I didn't have time limitation, I could have easily finished the whole recording and not stopped at the variation 8.
Then I moved on to the Bill Evans' famous recording - Waltz for Debby, this is the album I'd listened more than 50 times. There's a lot of ambient sounds in the recording, the MK3 show its excellence on micro dynamic and reveal them with ease, in my experience, this is a indication of high sensitivity/impedance design which is quite rare for a modern speaker.
Time for some classical live recording - Haydn Cello Concerto
To me, the mid range is most important part of a speaker, a speaker perform poorly in the mid range will struggle to show fundamental tone & overtone of the string instrument, theMK3 show no difficulty to bring out the richness of the string sound.
This is another excellent recording that I use for testing the vocal, sound stage & low frequency extension, the vocal is very natural through MK 3, sound stage is good too, and the organ sound is clear & extended.
This is the album that I assume everybody all have one, I like to use it to test the balance, instrument positioning & brass instrument timbre, the MK3 is surprisingly good with brass instrument timbre, because I found the brass instrument timbre is either thin & screaming, or muffled & dull in most of the speakers I encountered, but MK3 is one of the few speakers that express brass instrument with metallic shinny sound without screaming. I was really impressed.
Finally, this is one of my favorite recording in the last 25 years. Leonid Kogan was a great violinist, this Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto recording of his is still my number 1 choice of the work. I always use it to test the speaker's ability of expressing the artist's emotion & insightful interpretation of the music. With the recording I found quite a lot of boring speakers that can play music loud, but it played this recording like a background music. But through MK3 ,when the last note of the 3rd movement stopped, I found myself was in a deep emotion linked to the music ....................... Then I realized this is not another ordinary speaker, what I was listened to is something special ( or almost "Unique " )
MK3 is not completely spec finalized and no one know how the final finish will be, but I really hope it will turn out to be a beautiful speaker inside out, and even become a successful product for export market. Well done, Stefan :thumbs:
