My experience with Acoustic portrait. I am buying them.

Hi Guys,
I just placed an order for the acoustic portraits from siva/prithvi.As usual, prithvi was very helpful in letting me keep the demo pieces for a while and listening to them in detail. As he always says, it is very difficult to judge a speaker without listening to them extensively with a variety of music and then again keep on listening. I listened to them in detail for almost a week before deciding. I thought I will share my observations and reasons for buying them. My room is not prefect and my hardware is decent entry level (Nad electronics).

1. I have developed a dislike for boxy sounding loudspeakers. The AP is very non-boxy. It has a clean, open characteristic which basically paints a picture of sound around the speakers without the cabinet calling any attention to itself. The mids and highs just appear out of thin air and floats out to you.
2. The bass has a open and dry character which I noticed on speakers like the diva and proac. The bass had a bit of bloom in my room when I play very bass-heavy songs but I didn't notice it in prithvi's hall so I guess it has to do with my room. The low frequency extension is great without losing control and attack. Even with complex bass heavy tracks the woofers does its job without muddying anything. I guess the high end vifas are doing its job nicely. I can hear drum beats nice and clear with the bass guitar in the background without getting mixed up even at high volumes. All instruments are there in layers which in really commendable.
3. Honesty and transparency. A guitar sounds like a guitar without getting metallic and spitty. Most speakers will emit a clear metallic spitty sound (which satisfies most people) but the AP gives me the sound of the guitar like it actually sounds. The double bass strings can be seen and heard very organically. Very uncolored sound. This is true with any instrument but I checked them with instruments that I am familiar with. Basically guitar, trumpet, sax, piano, tabla and snare drum.
3. Very wide and tall soundstage. The soundstage exceeds the boundaries of the speakers horizontally and vertically. I can't locate the drivers. They just disappear leaving a tall and wide soundstage.
4. I do not lose any details even at very low volume levels in the entire frequency spectrum. The other day I was playing Dave brubeck's "take the A train" at very low volume and all the details and were there without any smearing or loss. The soundstage is still very wide and tall which makes low volume listening very entertaining. I can still feel the hit on the leather and detail on the cymbals clearly. Just play the jazz at low volume and sit around sipping a nice whiskey on ice.:)
5. Tonal balance across the frequency spectrum is just great. Nothing is added or taken away.
6. The highs are very open and detailed without sounding cold or brittle. But bad recordings get ripped apart.
7. The speakers sounded very good with most of music that I listen to so that helped make up my mind. It was like listening to most of my music again.
8. Most branded floor standers speakers I heard anywhere in this price bracket seem to sound boxy and impart a certain color to the sound which makes most music sound very predictable but the AP does not do that. Listening to most of my music was a pleasant surprise..:)
9. Very easy to drive.
10. Very dynamic. The drum sequence on some dave brubeck's tracks was a revelation.
11. The speakers are very scaleable. I can keep them for a long time without upgrading. I can keep on upgrading my other hardware and extract more out of them.
12. They are very sweet and clean with such music but can catch you by the throat and rattle your bones without sounding harsh if you play very dynamic music which makes them a very versatile speaker. That is why I like them.

Guys, I feel we should give our own people a chance to prove what they can do. People like siva, prithvi and viren are doing a great job. I have lost faith in cheap branded speakers after this experience. By the time a 50k branded speaker reaches India at your doorstep, you will be lucky if you get even 15k worth of materials in them. Rest of the money goes for all the neon bulb advts, margins for a lot of people in the pipeline, overheads, shipping costs etc.. I guess you need to go very hi-end if you need to get better sound than what these people can offer. Thanks prithvi / siva in helping me take the right decision......Keep up the good work.

ben i wanna chat with u ben come online when ever u login to hififorum just login to messenger so that we can chat....

cheers,
sandeep