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Review 1 of 1
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I've owned these speakers for a little over a year now and am quite surprised that they have not been reviewed here or in any of the major audio magazines yet. Expecially considering the very positive reviews of Athena's AS-F2 and AS-F2.2s, both here and in the magazines.
After having enjoyed Magnepan sMGa speakers for fifteen years, driven by my venerable Adcom GFA-535, a move to a new house with a smaller listening room had me searching for a more conventional loudspeakers. The Maggies just weren't suited for the smaller space. I considered and listened to many offerings from Energy, PSB, Polk and Infinity. After reading the review by Robert J. Reina in Vol.25 No.8 August, 2002 of Stereophile of the AS-F2s , I tried locating a dealer near me to auditon them but could not find any. When Audio Advisor dropped the price of the LS-500s to 300.00 to clear them out, I thought what the hell. They are supposed to be Athena's flagship speakers and Athena claims signficant improvements over the AS-F2s, so for the first time ever for me, I ordered sight unseen and unlistened to speakers. After all, I could always return them.
Now Athena recommends a 100 hour break in for the LS-500s to reach their full potential before critically placing them, but right out of the box I very impressed. I wasn't sure what to expect after listening to a very fine pair of Magnepans for years, but it was immediately clear that these speakers were going to excell in the areas the little Maggies fell short. Mainly in bass response and upper octive extension. I had been afraid I would be sacrificing imaging going to conventional speakers, but I was surprised to find that the LS-500s bettered the Maggies here too. The sound stage was precise, wide and deep.
After a little more than a year, the Athenas are fully broken in and I've upgraded to an Adcom GFA-5500 amp. Before the amp upgrade however, the Athenas performed beautifully through the little GFA-535. Bass extension went lower and was better defined. I suspected though that the speakers were up to better components and was I right. The GFA-5500 takes hold of these speakers and leaves you wondering how in the world Athena can make this fine of a speaker at this price. I only paid 300.00 for them, but they are worth every penny of their 700.00 msrp. Upper octives are silky smooth and detailed. The midrange is accurate and equally detailed and the bass.....oh my. As Robert J. Reina said of the AS-F2s, bass response just keeps going and going lower, with unbelievable accuracy and detail for speakers of this price point. Think 2000.00 when imagining the bass produced by these speakers and in every other way for that matter.
As I sit here listening to John Scofield and Pat Metheny on "I Can See Your House From Here", I here cymbals that sound like cymbals, drums that sound like drums, well fleshed out guitar sound that does not fatigue, powerful detailed bass and a soundstage that is so wide and detailed you think there must be some phase trickery going on here. Now some of this is being provided by the powerful Adcom amp but the speakers are able to reproduce it all.
These speakers make me wonder what Magnepan is talking about when they say that large instruments like piano can only be faithfull reprodced in size by large panel speakers. On Joe Sample's discs "Ashes to Ashes and The Pecan Tree" the piano sounds like the big grand it is and anchored to the floor.
Disc after disc I continue to be surpised and amazed by these speakers. Conventional wisdom says to spend the lion's share of your hard earned cash on speakers, then components. I think you can reverse that philosophy with these speakers, because they will faithfully reveal the strengths or weaknesses of what's in front of them. I highly recommend these speakers.
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