Sweet, fast, clear, disappearing boxes with terrific imaging, great mid-bass punch. No listening fatigue!

No deep bass - no big loss really. I don't listen to organ music. And if I want to crank "house" music, I go to the Meridians. They do loud very well.

Some years back I wanted to replace my Vandersteen 2ci's with something a little more detailed and revealing. I brought home a lot of speakers and compared them all - Focal, AE, EPOS, Totem and some Proac Response 1's (I'll get to the 2s shortly). The Proacs were much better than the rest of the bunch - a sweet top end that was also detailed and fast - you usually get detail and speed, but not sweet, but this had it all - great imagining, decent bottom for the size (I remember the Totem's were much better in that regard) - I was running them with a stock pair of VTL 225's, and a VTL preamp (can't remember the model) - just delicious. I bought another pair for my vacation home. Later I ended up buying some Meridian DSP6000's for my main room, and the Proacs for the bedroom. I have to admit - if you take away the bass? The Proacs were the better speaker. But I missed the bass. I also like to crank it up, which you really can't do with these speakers. I blew out MANY woofers. It was getting expensive. So years later I bought a pair of used Proac 2s. Holy Schmoly! I got everything I liked about the 1's (which had upgraded to 1s, then 1sc), but the bass was pretty incredible. No, not incredibly deep, but they had a speed and clarity I just hadn't heard before. It had the snap of a horn system but without the ugliness and honkiness of a horn system (I would never own a horn system, but they do dynamics well - in a distored, hyped up unrealistic way, but...) I am very happy. I will probably buy another pair, maybe two more (and replace my vacay home's 1's). Someone on this board said the Proacs gave him a headache - I find that hard to believe. I used to be in the hifi biz, and I once turned down a job to review hifi gear - I know a nasty-sounding speaker and this ain't one of them! He maybe have been speaking about the Studio series (which I find to be a little hard) - and which I use as my hot tub speakers.

Similar Products Used:

Proac 1, Proac 1s, Proac 1s, Focal, EPOS, Totem's, Roger's LS3/5a's, Meridian DSP5000's, some home-made bi-amped boxes with Esotar Dynaudio's, and Human 6" bass driver in a sealed box, electronic x-ov

The people bashing the response series are way off. You deaf and uneducated morons must be listening to crampy brite cd's because the proac's will reveal exactly what's on the recording. I've go to live shows almost weekly and have played hundreds of recordings(mostly vinyl)on the response 2s over the last two years and they are the epitome of accuracy and musicality. Wake up and listen.

sheer out and out realism and naturalness

nothing really

Further to my previous review, I have sinced moved into a new listening room and the over-fullness around the port frequency has completely disappeared, as I expected it would. It's just a shame you can't buy these anymore!

P.S. That special quality of how real ProAcs sound outside the listening room (as mentioned in Jeff Jahnke's review of the Future Ones) applies here also.

My 18 year old Paradigm 3Ss were due to be replaced; they still sounded very nice to me but it was time for me to get something more accurate and with better dynamic range. My budget was about $CDN 1500 ($US 1000). I of course started out by looking at Paradigm - the Reference Studio 60s. The 60s produced a warm, detailed and pleasing sound that put a smile on my face - I heard high and lows that I had never heard before. I checked out the Energy 6Cs but I was not happy with its ability to stay together on the low end. I listened to the B&W 603s but I found the sound a bit too bright and harsh.
I went to listen to PSB Stratus Silvers (C$1700/US$1100) but they were out of stock. Instead, I listened to the Golds (C$3000/US$2000). The Golds sounded warm and detailed but at that price were out of my budget. Given that I was already at the audio store and I had some time to listen to more speakers. Looking at the size of the towers, and assuming that the larger the tower the higher the price, I picked a speaker about 2/3 the height of the Golds. The sound of this speaker was phenomenal and all I could do was mouth a "WOW"; I had NEVER heard Holly Cole sound so good, so real - it was as if there was her trio was there in person playing for me. Turned out that these speakers were the ProAc Response 2.5 at C$6500! As much as I loved these speakers, I knew I would not be able to sell my wife on $6500 speakers when the budget was $1500. Anyway, I ended up listening to the 1SC (MRP C$3000) and the 2S (C$4400) - both beautifully sounding speakers with the 2S being larger with a better low end. The 2S was amazing in terms of highs, lows, musical detail and sound stage imaging. If you listen to vocals with musical accompaniment (3 - 4 instruments), you will be astounded at the level of detail and the quality of the sound in a good CD; and here's the kicker - you will actually be able to hear a good CD from a bad one! Also note that other types of music also sound great on this speaker.

My audiophile friends tell me that I have to start upgrading my components (amp and cables) upstream to start seeing more improvements.

I got a really good deal: 2S for C$3000 (US$2000)! (I had to do a bit of a selling job with my wife but even she would admit that the speakers sound incredible).

ProAc is phasing out the 2S with the line going from the 1SC to 2.5 and on through the Response 5. So there are probably some good deals to be had. I bought my speakers from Distinctive Audio in Ottawa (613-722-6902); Joel, who posted on this site put me in touch with Harrington Audio (705-742-7716) - great price also, but I ended up buying locally.

There were a few other speakers on my list to listen to: Vandersteen, NHT, Kestrel, but after hearing the 2S, I knew it was unlikely that I would hear better (IMHO).

Just Like Being there

Unatractive against newer speakers

Wow have these ugly old boxes changed my life I had given up hope of getting this much sound out of any speaker untill I found these in my dealers second hand section.
He fired them up and I was hooked but still wanted to try them on the end of my system as thing seldom sound as good back home. fearing my listening room may be to small I stuck em on the end of my musical fidelity A300 and A3 player and vowed I would kill if i had to take them back.
I am not able to put into words how all round or musicaly satisfying these speakers are but my Sonus Fabers are now a mugs eyefull for another buyer. Funny how my preconceptions of older speakers just got blown out the water, Proac got it right years ago in my not humble opinion.

Similar Products Used:

To many to mention but including some pretty eseoteric stuff

Okay, I've gotta put in my two cents worth here. The ProAcs - right across the range - simply sound more like real, live music than anything else out there. They don't impress with boom and tizz, just sheer out and out naturalness and transparency. I strongly disagree that the Electa Amator IIs are a better speaker - they just aren't as musically well balanced a transducer, and the R2Ss extract more REAL detail from recordings. I find the bass to be extraordinarily extended for such a small speaker (as much as I could ever want in my small room actually), and has just the right balance of weight and tautness - basically, just like the real thing. And the rhythm and pace of the ProAcs is unsurpassed - boy, can these things rock (or swing)! Then there's that legendary ProAc mid and top end, in the case of the R2Ss adding up to near-as-damnit pefectly balanced whole - they seem to NEVER sound too bright OR too dull, no matter what style of music or what kind of recording you throw at them. Oh yes, let's not forget that also legendary ProAc imaging - once again, simply just like the real thing.
Forget about trying to compare these thoroughbreds with other speakers in a dealer demonstration - other speakers might impress you more in this context, but they won't give you anywhere near as much lasting enjoyment of your music collection as these babies will. Compare them instead to real, live music - against almost all other speakers, there's just no comparison.

Some of the posts about this speaker are ridiculous in the extreme. I have listened to it on several occasions totalling about 12 hours with amps ranging from C-J to Gryphon and ARC, and I have never failed to be impressed.It is an outstanding all-rounder with many virtues, namely its cohesiveness, faithfulness to the musical message, imaging,and seductive rhythmic presentation, and it has that one quality which IMHO is paramount; It makes me want to play every record/CD available-NO listener fatigue.
Having said that, I do not own them as 1) The bass around 40-80Hz is a little too full for my room 2)The price in Australia is appx. 2.5X SF Concerto, which to my ears,(my taste!) is about equal to it. Given a different room I may well have made a different decision. These are my genuine thoughts about a speaker which I believe is one of the few classics in audio, and I know of several people who spend many happy hours listening to them.

Wonderful! This page is finally restricted to reviews of the R2S! Graeme's review in particular is I feel quite perceptive - the only problem I've had with them was a VERY slight over-fullness around the port frequency (as my room's main resonant mode is at almost exactly the same frequency), which I initially solved by stuffing them with foam. However, very careful placement and further running in have rectified the problem pretty much completely (I leave the ports open now). They do seem to be balanced more for small to medium sized rooms than my very small one, but their musical rewards and exceptional overall balance made them very well worth the effort. Graeme is right on the money when he says they have you digging through your entire music collection for hours on end!

Nobody does voices like ProAC. These speakers sounded great and are an excellent value at their current clearance price. But I did get a headache after listening after 5 minutes whilst using a Moon I-5 (unlike the other speakers I heard today). They are an excellent match with Copland amplification. Careful system matching is required.

Soundstage, transparency, articulate but edge-less highs and beautiful midrange.

Limited low frequencies make the speaker seem a bit thin and even cold at times.

This was a wonderful speaker and I found that it responded well to small tweaks, always having more to reveal. I noticed that it sounded better as I moved it away from the wall. Ultimately, I decided that it was falling short for blues, jazz and rock so I added a REL Strata subwoofer, which I ran directly from the speaker output terminals on my Sonic Frontiers Anthem Amp-1. It made a world of difference, but I found that sometimes the mid-bass seemed punchy and out of phase in this setup.

Similar Products Used:

None.