Increadibly smooth highs and mids. Nice broad soundstage.

To me the bass is too boomy and the speaker is a bit too laid back.

I've been shopping for a new pair of speakers for about 8 months. I have spent many hours listening to the 10-T at a local shop with a pair of levison 33 monoblocks and the reference preamp with a variety of cd players including the ML39. Cables have been all transparent, both the supers and the reference xl. They were my speaker of choice for most of the search haveing competed with B&W 801 (too dry and a bit bright for my taste), Hales, Revel f-30 (the tweaters have a sharp edge that i couldn't deal with though they probably needed some breaking in....the slalons were great but tooooo pricey)) , vandersteen 3a (vandersteens are very open and airy sounding speakers.. i am upgrading from a set of 1-B), Girshman avante garde (nice little speaker that sounded very good in an extreemly poor set up and environment, probably would be killer properly tweeked), Eggelston andres. Initially the 10-Ts seemed to do everthing right, warm sounding, good soundstage development, great highs and mids with no chance of listening fatigue, deep bass and they dissapear completely. They are wonderful on jazz and classical music. However, when i included rock and loud blues i found that compared to some of the other speakers, i started to detect a boominess in the bass of the 10-t that was very annoying. They also seemed a bit closed in ...the sound just wouldn't open up as much as i would like. I have a feeling that a lot of the bass problem can probably be attributed to the need for room treatments in the auditioning room though rearranging the speaker placement didn't seem to help much. I was about to take them home and try to get them dialed in in my room when i discovered what i think is the best sounding, affordable, speaker i have heard..the Dunlay Althea (formerly the athena). TheDunlavys were auditioned in a well treated room using a ACR VT100 mkII and a wadia 850 run direct into the amp. Man what a musical combination. Given the fact that I ended up working to like the 10-T and the Dunlavys just blew me away every time i heard them the dunlavys won the battle. Comparing speakers in different rooms with different systems doesn't give the speakers an equal chance and should be a motivation for dealers to prepare the best rooms they possibly can. The 10-T are great speakers (especially for the price i was quoted) but they will take some work to get them sounding their best. I give them a 4 star based on my preferences and the conditions they were auditioned under. They may easily rate 5 stars in the right set up.

Seductive midrange and bass control

Need alot of power to make them come alive

Folks, I've had my Aerial 10ts for a month now and can tell you that the bass is no where close to being bloated unless you are running it with less-than-adequate amps and electronics. I've mated them with an EAD Powermaster 2000 and the thing comes alive. The bass is taunt and quick, and the decay of the drum whack is equally impressive. This is one heck of a speaker. The tonal quality of the midrange is uncolored and the treble is, oh so smooth. Make sure of three things when you demo these speakers: 1. Make sure they are on stands or spikes if the area is carpeted. Without them, the bass seems to resonate quite a bit. 2. Make sure the amp is up to handling these speakers (suggest greater than 400 watts for solid state). I've ran them with 400 watt aragons and doesn't come close to what they sound like with the EAD at 700 watts. 3. Make sure it is mated with top notch electronics and cabling. 4 **** for being an excellent overall performer and 4 **** for value.

Amazing response across the entire range- very neutral

gotta give them a lot of power

I respectfully disagree with the previous poster. The 10ts are great speakers and the bass is in no way slow. The speakers he heard must have had a problem with them. In this price range- you will be hard pressed to find better- although his recommendation of Dynaudio is a good one- they are good speakers also. I like the 10ts better.

Similar Products Used:

B&W N802

Great bass, musicality, huge soundstage, fit and finish

Take lots of power and very careful placement

I've been using my 10T's in a 7.1 surround system with four Aerial 5's and an Aerial CC3 center. I was running them from a Lexicon DC1 version 4 Preamp through a Sunfire 300wpc amp, with a Sunfire Cinema Grand for the surrounds and a Sunfire Truesub. I also hae a Sunfire Classic Tube Preamp between the Lexicon and the power amps, as I'm not much for the sound of solid state highs and mids. Wire is Audiopath Supernal and Nordost Flatline, with Monster Z2 interconnects. I have the birdseye maple finsh and the 10T's are truely beautiful to look at, and match our woodwoork very well. I agree with everything positive that has been said about the 10T'in spades, and have nothing negative to say about them. I love them, and will be listening to music through them for many years. The reason I'm writing this is to talk about bi-amping them. Believe it or not, the Sunfire at 300 WPC was not enough to really make them sing. I've recently added a Jolida 202B tube amp 40WPC) to the party to run the mid and high range minimonitors that sit on top of the wooden bass cabinets. OMYGOD it sounds fantastic. The Jolida sounds way more powerful than 40 WPC, believe me. The instruments hang all over the room, and the music is sooo sweet and clear, that it really does approach the sound of live music. The improvemnt is enormous, far better than I'd hoped for. I replaced the stock tubes in the Jolida with new old stock tubes and the sound took yet another huge jump. Only problem was that the center CC3 did not blend with the 10T's anymore. So I picked up a Jolida 102B (20 WPC) and bridged it to run the center channel highs after also swapping the tubes, and now I'm in sonic nirvana. The surrounds with all solid state amps sound just fine, particularly because the Lexicon lets you roll them off at a fairly low level. In my research I found that you need a tube amp with a volume control, because balancing the loudness between the treble and bass of each speaker by ear requires a level of fine adjustment. With this bi-amping setup, everything about the 10T's and CC3 sounds better; voice is crystal clear, bass is tight and tuneful, and the mids and treble are liquid and gorgeous. The Jolidas can be had new for $600 and $450 respectively, and are the best deal I've ever seen for many applications in hi-fi. If you can try this combination, with solid state for the bass and tubes for the mids and highs, I thnk you will be very impressed. I've only got a few hours on the Jolidas and the tubes, and they take a long time to break in. I can't wait to hear them in a few weeks.

Similar Products Used:

Klipsche Quartets, Alon II's, Aura

Gorgeous craftsmanship. Excellent, tight bass, sweet sound, articulate highs, transparency, soundstaging, imaging, focus, etc.

No weaknesses.

I have the rosewood finish. With the right electronics, especially the right amp, one can make most any decent full-range speaker step up to the plate. With the right amp and a pair of Aerial 10T's, the sound is absolutely breathtaking. I happen to have a McCormack DNA2 Limited Anniversary Edition rated at 600 wpc into 4 ohm. Besides the high power capability, this is one fast and clean amp that happens to be rated at the top of the solid state heap and makes the 10t's absolutely sing.

Even with lesser amps, I could find no fault with the 10t's. Even when I was using a Denon 5700 receiver, the bass was pretty tight yet still had a natural bloom to it.

Everything about the 10T's is first rate. But, again, the bass is exceptional. I do use a subwoofer for my two channel listening for reproducing the lowest octaves. It was two weeks of listening before I realized my subwoofer wasn't even working and I was listening to some very low end music. For those who spoke negatively about the bass perhaps they may not have auditioned the Aerials in an acoustically sound room and/or may have had sub-par power amplification and/or sub-par signal amplification. I only recently discovered that some to many amplifiers actually go out of their way to distort, smear, or veil much of the musical information at the micro levels. Some manufacturers even call it a 'smooth' sounding amp and charge $20k or more for that elevator music amp but make no mistake they are stripping away musical information from your source. That 'smooth'ing technique is often times aquired by subduing the normally very dynamic initial attack of a musical note and/or by lingering the decay of that same note so that the notes at the micro level actually merge one into another, leaving no room for intertransient silence. If one happens to have one of these so-called smooth amps, how could one properly audition the capabilities of the Aerial 10T's or any other speaker for that matter?

Enough of my soapbox.

Anyway, the optional stands and spikes also are a welcome addition for the lower regions.

On poor recordings where the trebles can beam straight into your ear, the 10T's do their absolute best to keep your ears from bleeding.

Transparency is excellent. I've never been one to put much faith in power line tweaks. However, very recently I moved the components around between a dedicated 20 amp and non-dedicated 15 amp circuits, installed audio grade wall outlets and a Foundation Research LC2 line conditioner dedicated to the amp, as well as having installed the mechanical isolating spike that came with the amp at the back of the amp, and the spikes into the bottom of the speaker stands. Every tweak made substantial improvements at the micro-dynamic level and some at the macro level. For the last two weeks I've been up until 1 or 2 a.m. every morning listening to the same music in a whole new light.

I believe one would have to spend substantially more than the retail $8700 for the 10T's with stands to achieve the same sonic characteristics as the Aerial 10T's.

An excellent sounding and beautiful looking speaker by any standards.

Now if only I can get my hands on an Aerial SW12 subwoofer.

Equipment:
----------------------------------------------------------
McCormack DNA 2 LAE
Primare P30 pre/pro
Sony DVP s9000es SACD player
Aerial Acoustic 10T's
Triad Platinum subwoofer
Harmonic Technology Pro Silway II and Pro 9 interconnects and cables.

I have four 10Ts with CC3 center speaker in a new 18' X 25' X 12' highnew acoustical room with Room Tune pressure zone treatments, a Dwin
CRT and line doubler, and Bryston 7B mono amps with Transparent Super
Bicable,Theta Casablanca surround processor, and five Vandersteen 2Wq
subwoofers. I just love the Aerials. Even prior to upgrading my
srround processor and cables they were wonderful, for both audio and
video. They easily handle the high dynamics of home theater and yet
have grace and agility audiophiles demand!

True to the source

Needs plenty of high current (whimpy amps and upstream components need not apply)

Please disregard Logans review, its not so. NO WAY is the bass boomy. If used with the proper components and room and placement, etc the 10t will reward you with good sound. BTW i'm listening to B.B.King's the thrill is gone as i type this and man does it sound great. GO GIANTS 17/16 a tight one just like the bass on the 10T.

Similar Products Used:

Older 10Ts

Very dynamic, clear midrange, smooth high frequencies.

Boomy and uncontrolled bass.

I have mixed feelings about the 10T. While this speaker is very dynamic and smooth through the highs and mids, I have to agree with M. Logan, in that the bass can sometimes sound boomy or uncontrolled.

Big Soundstage and Dynamic

Very Boomy

A very dynamic speaker that has a large soundstage and images very well. I just couldn't get over how boomy this speaker is.

I've tried posting this review on a few occasions, and, for some reason, it hasn't "taken." Perhaps just as well. I think I've got some unique insights into the Aerials.
I went from the Definitive Technology BP2000 array to the Aerial 10ts, with the CC3 center channel and the SR3 surrounds. First let me state the good.

The Aerials are more revealing in both the highs and midranges than the Definitives, but not greatly so. The bass is tighter, but, then, with the Definitive you're talking about a speaker with an active subwoofer, so it goes down much deeper with the Definitive. You could say "boomier," but you could say that about any subwoofer. There are pros and cons to each.

The Aerials are very detailed and focused, and they are better in the "sweet spot" considerations than I had imagined. The soundstage they cast is much larger than you would expect, although I have a large room (20'w x27'l x14' h at cathedral peak), and the speakers are necessarily 12 feet apart, with the center smack-dab in the middle.

Two points I'll make, that have more to do with the manufacturer's philosophy--which I'll call penny pinching--than the product they put out.

I ordered the rear speakers with the "remote." It's not really a remote at all, not like you'd expect. You're required to connect wires inside a wall from one speaker to the next, and then another wire runs down to some place you'd sit, and, at the end of the wire, is the "button" which switches these speakers from bipole to dipole. None of this is really disclosed, and no one really thinks to ask, because of the conventional notion of what we expect from a "remote." The cost was only $200 extra, but when I saw what it involved, I said the hell with it. I asked Michael Kelly if I could get a credit on returning his wire, and, no, I could not. I guess that the speaker has something built in it, too, to be fair, but I'd hoped that after spending close to $10,000 on speakers some small consideration might be given? None.

Point two: I've blown the CC3 center channel--two weeks after purchase. The PROBABLE way that I've blown it is by using the XLO "TEST & BURN-IN CD" to break in the new speakers. There is a high frequency test tone on an earlier track, and that's the only explanation for why all the drivers in the center channel were blown. I'll accept that explanation, but I can only say this: I used that XLO disc numerous times with the DTs, and a set of Klipschs before them, and never a puff, let alone a blow. But I am now told that, for the repairs to the 2 week old speaker, I must pay $400--so says Michael Kelly. Given the fact that this speaker has a retail price of $1200, I have to believe he's charging me damn near what it would cost to give me a whole new speaker at his cost. But I'm sort of stuck. I had a piece of furniture (cabinet) MODIFIED to fit the CC3 Center Channel speaker, and the old Klipsch I have in there now looks stupid--like a little square peg in a large hole. I need the CC3 just for its dimensions.

My first reaction to this was to send the speakers back--all of them--and just demand all my money back. I'm a lawyer, and I know the trouble I could cause would make any retailer or manufacturer wish they'd treated me differently. That's not to claim any lawyer arrogance: it's simply to say that, just like Michael Kelly will pay less for his loudspeakers than you will pay for them, I can assert my legal rights cheaply too. I'm not going to, because $400 is not worth arguing over: I just wish that Michael Kelly had the same disposition, i.e., that $400 was not enough to justify the ire of a new customer. Apparently, it was enough.

I will let Mr. Kelly know that, while perhaps I will acquiesce on this issue (and it ain't over yet), I will subject him to the strictest scrutiny in the unfortunate event that any other warranty work needs to be done. I guess that I'm not so certain I trust in warranties, where the manufacturer reserves to itself the unilateral right to determine if the warranty "counts."

That having been said, I can offer this observation. The CC3 center channel is really the star of the show in the Aerial array, which, living without it for weeks has now taught me. While it's unfair to compare the Klipsch to the Aerial (different timbre-matching, 1/4 the price), I can say that I have MISSED the center channel (perhaps missed it enough to not let my Sicilian blood get the better of me and return all the Aerials).

In surround modes, the center channel is by far and away the most important speaker. Aerial has recognized this. The CC3 is at once neutral, revealing, and closest-to-full-range in a center channel that I've heard. Without it, the Aerial system fails. With it, it's a great success.

Yes, I'll give the speakers good grades. But with the caveat that the attitude of the manufacturer, particularly in penny-pinchingness, has not pleased me, and it is something audiophiles should know.

One last point. While the 10ts are about as good as you can get on non-active speakers for bass, they still need a powered sub. I have a Krell 250a that drives these speakers, with a Krell KAV500 driving the centers and rears. I have a Proceed PAV/PDSD surround processor/preamp. Certainly the powered sub is necessary with movies, but I've found that it is necessary with music as well. However, I set the crossover at 40hz, so the only bass that the 10ts miss is very low indeed. But it does need it. The Velodyne FSR18 is what I use, although I'm certain there are any number of higher-end subs that would work well. From my experience, it's all in the tweaking.

So, with all my vitriol, and with my expectation of having my center channel returned, I give a thumbs up to the product, a thumbs down to the treatment I've received.
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