IgyK

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
2.33 of 5, 3.00 votes

Price Paid:  $1800.00 from privat seller

Summary:
Wounderful speaker, great in al areas,specialy dynamics,very unfussy about placment. You can hear the musicians playing in your living room. You don't need a strong amp to drive them,so this is for me an absolute best buy on second hand market.

Strengths:
Great sound! Makes the speakers in this price range sound like total crap!

Weaknesses:
None

Similar Products Used:
Shahinian Super Elf, Opera Pavarotti

Price Paid:  $1650.00 from hifi speciality deal

Summary:
Exceptiponally involving speaker with a beautiful soundstage. The imaging quality is first rate. This speakers hines with all types of music. Unlike most speakers, Shahinian speakers do not need special placement, pucks, or any other audio doodads to sound great. The arcs presetn a well rounded sound. They are not the absolute definition of bass, a tasteful subwoofer rounds out the bottom nicely.

Strengths:
Size and ease of placement. No matter where you place the speaker it sounds great

Weaknesses:
None for this price range--if you wish to compare the speaker to those selling for $4,000 USD--you get a tad more articulation around voices and instruments

Similar Products Used:
Audio Pro B2-25 with subwoofer; Allison 1:B&W 805: Sonas Faber [bookshelf model]; Shahinian Obelisk;

Price Paid:  $2300.00 from Specialist hi fi sho

Summary:
I was a little nervous buying omnidirectional speakers when not many people had heard of them let alone used them. My local hi fi store (which does not now stock them for I know not what reason) were excellent in allowing me to see how they worked at home. I liked to be a little different from friends, always wanting to do something with my hi fi that was unusual, so the Arcs were a bit of a gamble. But what a gamble - they are assured, have a fantastic bass and give the overall impression of being in the concert hall with the performers. ave recently taken a quantum leap by buying a Mark Levinson CD player and the speakers just keep on getting better. Anybody care to advise whether I would hear a major difference if I upgraded to the more expensive Shahinian speakers?? If not, I'll stick - the Arcs are more than a match for more expensive conventional speakers

Strengths:
Great soundstage, ability to handle any amount of power, can be placed anywhere

Weaknesses:
None that I have discovered in more than 8 years

Summary:
When I first heard the Arcs I just sat there and they made me wonder. What is it? How, or should I say: why do they work? No spikes, no bi-wiring, fuses in the signal-path and a cabinet of funny proportions. I thought: Someone really made up his mind about speakers. Do 99% of all speakermanufacturers go the wrong way?
Introduced in the early 80´s and carefully improved over the years they may not compete with the looks of todays design and lifestyle speakers. But that cannot be a weakness in my opinion, for they just sound better than any speaker I heard before.
You don´t need any of that high-end-vocabulary to describe the Arcs. I got the feeling that music just has to sound like that.They are always a little "charming", that´s for sure. But that could only disturb some pedantic listeners. I would call it "long time listening satisfaction".

I use a powerful and stable Tube-Amp (Pear Audio, a brand of the german distributor of Shahinian, www.pearaudioeurope.si) with the Arcs. Than the miraculous soul of any kind of music associates with all the qualities you achieve with good solid state amps.

Strengths:
soundstaging and overall musicality

Weaknesses:
retail-price in Germany is like a nightmare

Similar Products Used:
B&W (several)and Cabasse

Price Paid:  $1000.00 from Used (from a friend)

Summary:
Forget the oddball looks, stick on your favourite album, sit back and prepare to smile. A lot.

It's hard to quantify exactly what this makes these weird looking loudspeakers so amazing, although there are a couple of things which spring to mind.

First suspect, and the most instantly “wowing” aspect of their sound has to be the bass, which goes right the way down to 25Hz (-3dB), yet is as hard-hitting and rhythmic as I have heard anywhere. Bass drums thump you in the chest, bass guitars time brilliantly, and the whole thing underpins, rather than dominates. The speaker strikes an almost impossible balance between finesse, and sheer welly.

The other big surprise is a midband which is almost electrostatic-like in terms of purity and sheer openness. Female vocals and acoustic guitars are reproduced so naturally and with such emotion that a well recorded album can cause tingles in the spine, and raised hairs on the back of the neck. With vocals, the tweeters also help. Treble is sharp and beautifully defined, yet there is never any hint of spittiness or sibilance, however hard the speaker is pushed.

More importantly than any of these points though, is the Shahinians’ unfathomable ability to just dig out the raw emotion and soul in whatever music they are fed, and throw it at you in a manner which hooks the listener, but always stops short of aggression. Shahinian proudly boast that their speakers are set up and tuned purely by ear, and without the aid of computer measurement. Trust me, the results are spectacular. Even my wife, who has no interest whatsoever in hi-fi has spent hours revisiting her music collection in front of these little crackers. Oh, and they go loud effortlessly with no hint whatsoever of hardening or shout.

Despite the stupendous bass and the slightly forward nature of these speakers, nothing in the sound dominates or spoils anything else. It just plays the music, preserving all of its character, and all of its soul. The music leaps out of the boxes and dances around the room, but the speaker never becomes fatiguing or over the top. Fanatics of sheer accuracy might find room for criticism, but for me, any speaker which gets to the heart of the music in this way, and which requires extreme restraint to sit remotely still in front of demands respect, and is worthy of serious consideration.

Later revisions aren’t quite the swine of a load they once were, but the Arcs do demand decent amplification, especially in terms of bass control. Surprisingly though, this doesn't have to be expensive. If you must have these speakers but your current amp isn't up to it, go find yourself a decent 2nd hand Pioneer A-400 (original, pre-X model) which succeeds brilliantly where some amps costing three times as much fail spectacularly. Despite the price gulf, the sound of the Pioneer on these speakers reminds me why I got into hi-fi in the first place. 30 seconds into a track and my foot is tapping, and my head nodding. I know I’m hearing every ounce of soul and emotion that the artist put into the music. I’m enjoying myself, I’m already a good 20 minutes late for work, yet I really don’t want to leave the room. To my mind, this is exactly what hi-fi should be all about.

Strengths:
Awesome musicality, earth shaking yet fast and rhythmic bass, pure and uncoloured midrange, one of the most engaging loudspeakers at any price.

Weaknesses:
Styling an acquired taste, and demand an amp with good control. Little else.