I brought these for $3400 dollars and compared them to my Plinius SA 250. I found them to be more detailed than the Plinius, but a bit less control of bass. If you like rock music, you would have to bi-amp with something that can supply more bass power. For 90% of music they are very very good. With my Jordan JX53 array speakers (92 db/w) there was some sound stage image for some music. 3 stars as manufactured.
I have now modified the amplifiers by replacing 7 resistors in each amp with tantalum Shinkoh non-inductive resistors. This alone made an enormous difference to clarity and sound stage, I also then changed the 4 Auricap capacitors (rated 8/14) with Ampohm copper foil paper in oil rated (12/14). This made a further improvement.
I now hear the sound stage easily. I have been listening to my collection over again. Everything is different.
Many cd's completely captivate me now but didn't before, some I thought were good, now are shown to be imperfect recordings (Reference recordings are fantastic!). I enjoy choir and prom recordings most. I get a strong sense of looking down on the choirs in the Royal Albert Hall. Voices often sound like there is a real person behind the curtain (I've got heavy curtains around the room), or standing in the middle of the room.
I'm just so moved every time I listen, I wish I could share it with more people.
Next improvement will be to replace speaker resistors for non-inductive ones. Then add bypass capacitors to the amps.


The idea I have stuck to is to use minimal components, no pre-amp.
The speakers are full range (100 Hz to 20,000) and only have a capacitor (2Uf Mundorf Silver PIO) and resistors in parallel. They roll off by themselves at about 15o Hz. There are 4 JX53's in each Jordan designed cabinet (I built them). For bass I have made 6ft long by 2ft high 'coffins' - transmission lines with Kef B139's.
These roll in at about 220Hz. I have used a 3rd order bass Xover because with the 1st order, I found these went all the way up to about 1200 Hz, causing a muddying of the mid range.
Although I have a Music First Copper pre-amp (passive), I don't use it for CD's because I find that it lightens the bass slightly (a common finding with passives apparently, I guess bass is reduced by 3 to 6 db). I have an Ah Njoe Tjoeb CD player with all extras, incl. 24bit 192kH up-sampler. This has an in-build volume control, which I usually have at above 75% as I've tweaked it to match the sensitivity of the amps.

I think Dared should offer an option to build with those components.