John, Shane: Thanks for the responses.

I asked the dealer at Harvey very offhandedly whether he preferred the Mahlers or Strauss. He said he preferred the Strauss with a subwoofer. I did not get a chance to hear his justification, i.e., whether he was thinking of two-channel, home theater, his own personal situation, etc. -- the store was closing and we were talking on the sidewalk. In any event, the Verities are supurb at what they do and I am sure you will enjoy them. I have Mahlers and Salons, and actually prefer the Mahlers in a number of ways.

On a different topic, I use Kimber Select 1030 throughout my main system, the single-ended version of the 1130 you have. As explained above, don't draw any conclusions as to any Kimber "Black Pearl" silver product until it has a good 1,000 hours on it. My closest hi-fi friend found Jena Symphony to be superior to 1030 in his (very high-end) system (quieter, more dynamic, and more like live music), but cables of course are very system finnicky, so perhaps you will find otherwise.

raquel September 24, 2005 15:48

Gentlemen:

I have read the above exchange comparing the Strauss with the Verities with interest. As Shane knows, I have Mahlers in my second system.

Your exchange raises a question for me that I have wondered about in the past: how comparable is the performance of the Strauss to the Mahler? It appears that they use different midrange drivers (the drivers in the Strauss looked physically smaller to me when I saw the speaker at Harvey on West 45th St. in NYC, and Sumiko's website indicates that they are indeed slightly smaller). Also, while the Mahler otherwise appears to differ only in having an additional 10" woofer, it is, at $10k versus $6k, nearly twice the price of the Strauss. Does it therefore have, for example, a more refined crossover, better cabinet construction, etc., to justify the price disparity?

Has anyone out there carefully compared these two speakers and/or can anyone speak from knowledge about the technical differences between them?

raquel September 23, 2005 14:44

I have a friend running the Dynavector XV-1s with an SME IV. They work extremely well together -- the resonant frequency is 11 Hz., which is perfect for each.

raquel August 23, 2005 19:25

Shane: Actually, what I am saying is that burned-in 3033 is a flat-out great cable, and can be incredibly good on Mahlers assuming it works with the partnering amp, and that 3035 or 3038, which use the Black Pearl silver conductor, sound close to broken until they get the full 1,000 hours on them. If it is easy for you to do, my strong advice is to give the 3033 a shot.

raquel July 30, 2005 16:04

Shane:

That is a shame -- those cables are nowhere near ready for critical listening with so few hours on them. Yet another example of a dealer not knowing something crucial about a high performance hi-fi product.

Yeah, if you were anywhere near, they'd be all yours for a good demo. I use Kimber Select all-silver exclusively in my main system, and used Kimber Select all-copper exclusively in my second system. While in my systems, there was a very noticeable difference between the all-silver (1030) and all-copper (1011) interconnects, the difference between the all-silver (3038) and all-copper (3033) speaker cables was much more subtle, the only real difference being a bit more resolution in the mids and highs with the silver cable (as there should be). In short, I can whole-heartedly recommend the 3033, and being all-copper, it only needs about 100 hours to come around.

As for the 3035, however, you have not heard that cable yet -- your dealer did you (and himself) a disservice. If you would like to know my source at Kimber who confirmed what my dealer told me about the 1,000 break-in period for the Kimber products using the Black Pearl silver conductor, I can e-mail you offline.

raquel July 29, 2005 23:33

Shane:

Good to hear from you. Do you know how many hours the 3035 you tried had on them? I ask because the "Black Pearl' silver conductor takes a full 1,000 hours to break in fully. This was not only my personal experience, but the (sheepish) acknowledgment of a very high up at Kimber. Without those hours, the cables sound closed in and a bit dead.

raquel July 29, 2005 02:31

Shane:

I think I've mentioned this to you before. Sumiko, the U.S. importer of Vienna Acoustics, used to demo the Mahlers with Kimber Bi-Focal, and that is what they recommended to me as being the best for controlling the woofers. I ended buying Kimber's best, Kimber Select, first the all-copper 3033 and then all-silver 3038, which uses the same cable geometry as the Bifocal, but it is an overall better cable. Both did/do a great job, especially with the bass. In addition, Anthony Cordesman, in his review of the Mahlers for Audio, found that Kimber Select gave him much better control of the bass and bass tone than the other cables he had on hand. The all-copper 3033 is not outrageously expensive, at +/-$1,500 new for 8 ft. runs in the U.S., and half that if purchased used (the all-silver 3038, on the other hand, is really expensive).

Speaker cables also interact greatly with the amp (so much so that they should probably be called "amp cables"), and I cannot say how Kimber Select would work with your c-j amps, so there would be some uncertainty there. They worked great with all of my amps, for whatever it's worth (two different SS amps and tube monoblocks).

Hope this helps.

raquel July 28, 2005 21:30

Shane:

Those Mahlers look pretty close to the back wall. Have you tried them a few more feet out from the wall? You could also try reversing the direction in which the woofers fire. Either of these moves could soften your bass hump.

I enjoyed the LP covers of the King (and, of course, the disco ball hanging from the ceiling).

raquel July 16, 2005 21:22