sound is full

Sound reproduction is not flat.Bass is too loud relative to mid-range and and high frequency

I bought this pair of Duetta second hand and have a lot of problem with unbalanced level between bass and mid/high. I get some improvement by attenuating the bass but still find mid-high lacking. I wonder if bi-amp would help. Would welcome any comments or suggestions. How can I get a copy of the manual?

Similar Products Used:

megnepan

Bass speed, clarity & extension
Midrange speed, definition and accuracy
Treble air, extension and definition
COST!!!!

Be careful to get a pair that doesn't buzz at high volumes
MUST be at least 3-4ft from the back wall and 6' apart

BUY THESE SPEAKERS (if you can find them)!!!

There is nothing else close to them, even at 5 times the price!!!

The power, grand scale, transparency, sound staging, speed, and accuracy are just GLORIOUS!!! There is not a speaker I've heard that isn't a generation behind these! At their current used price of +- $1600 they should get a value and overall rating of 20 stars (********************)

Associated equipment:

Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 3D CD player
Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista M3 amp
Wilson Benesch Full Circle turntable
Wilson Benesch Act Two tonearm
Wilson Benesch Triptych turntable stand
Ortofon Jubilee cartridge
BAT VK-P10 phono stage
Nordost blue heaven interconnects
Aureos vibration control

Similar Products Used:

Martin Logan CLS IIz
Martin Logan ReQuest
ProAc Response 1SC
Tannoy Dual Concentric 615

Crystalline clarity, holographic soundstaging, deep bass, and quick dynamics

Best performance in a larger room – the front of the speaker should be positioned 36 to 48 inches into the room. A good, high current amp is necessary for adequate control of the ribbon bass panel.

This is the best speaker I've ever owned. Music reproduction, whether rock, jazz, vocal, or full orchestra, is almost spookily realistic and natural-sounding. A very responsive, detailed speaker which also has great dynamics and deep, strong bass.

This speaker is a 58 inch tall x 30 inch wide line source panel which delivers a full size soundstage. Image height is realistic, vocalists are life sized, instruments are well placed on the soundstage, and the soundstage has great depth. Instrumental harmonics are outstanding.

The Duetta Signature is a "full range ribbon speaker" -- it's not a hybrid speaker, and ribbons are the only transducers used to produce the sound. The 47 inch midrange/tweeter ribbon is mated with a large, trapezoidal bass panel made of the same material (aluminum signal traces bonded to a clear Kapton backing). Because of this, the Duetta Sig is a very "fast," coherent, sweet and pure-sounding speaker from top to bottom.

One cautionary note: This speaker requires an amplifier which is capable of delivering a lot of current into a low impedance load. However, the impedance curve is very flat (3 to 4 ohms across the board from approximately 30 Hz to 20 kHz) and it's frequency response is very smooth. Well worth the expense of purchasing a good amp. Highly recommended if you can find a used one in good condition.

REPLACEMENT RIBBONS AVAILABLE:

Replacement ribbons for all Apogee speakers are now available from two sources:

-- graz@graz.com.au

-- apogeeribbons@yahoo.com

For additional information on the Duetta Signature and other Apogee ribbon speakers, see:

http://www.apogeespeakers.totalserve.co.uk

Similar Products Used:

Apogee Centaur Minor, Apogee Centaur, Magnepan SMGc

Yes, I know -- they haven't been made for years, Apogee is essentially out of business, they're tough to set up (though not so bad as legend has it) and equally tough to drive (ditto). Still, the only speaker I have heard extensively which surpasses the Duetta Sig is the Wilson Audio Grand SLAMM. (I've never even seen, much less heard, a pair of Apogee Divas, which may well be even better than the Duettas.)
What makes the Duetta Sig so special? One quality: seamlessness. This seamlessness is tonal, spatial and dynamic. The biggest problem with speakers is that the drivers are almost always made out of different materials and in most cases sound like it. In Apogee's ribbon designs the same foil/Kapton ribbon material is used for all frequencies; as planar dipoles, they function as near-perfect line sources. The result is a uniformity of character from top to bottom which is nearly magical.

The resolution floor of the Duetta Sigs is astoundingly low. While they are relatively inefficient/insensitive, electrically speaking, the low mass of the ribbons allows the speaker to respond to the wispiest of low level detail in a musically natural manner.

Bass is prodigious -- I've had the things set up for just a few days, and have not worked out the precise location where bass is most even and integrated, but leading indicators are that this will not be overly difficult in my medium-large room. The Duetta Sigs are able to put out exceptionally powerful and defined LF down into the upper 20s, which mandates careful set-up work to obtain best overall performance. Planar bass is not like cone bass (ask anyone who has owned Magnepans) -- there is not so much the gut thump as the potent and rolling bloom into space.

The Apogee's midrange is jaw-dropping/eye-popping good -- voices sound more natural through this speaker than any other I have heard. Treble, contrary to popular opinion, is not rolled off, provided one uses fast, phase-correct and non-euphonic speaker cables (try biwiring with Nordost SPM). The Duetta Sig's treble is not, however, reproduced with the up front, hi-fi quality many audiophiles seem to prefer. The treble balance of unamplified music through the Duetta Sig is far closer to what one hears in the concert hall or the jazz club than in the typical audio showroom. BTW, toe them in _minimally_, if at all, for best treble.

Soundstaging is unparalleled - the Duetta Sig carves out a clearly defined space, and lets music happen within that space. There is no "layering" or overly pinpoint imaging, just a wonderfuly coherent sense of real space.

Apogees can certainly be driven effectively by more of today's amps than those which were around in the early 1990s. My Audio Research VT100 Mk II is perfectly adequate, and provides excellent macrodynamics along with state-of-the-art microdynamics. Too bad I can't afford a VT200! Perhaps one reason for Apogee's gradual abandonment of the all-ribbon technology was that the speakers were simply too demanding of and good for the electronics of their day.

The downside is, of course, that the speakers are essentially unserviceable in the (unlikely) event that something should go wrong. Conversely, they were quite expensive ($4500+) when new and demanding as hell of the day's amplifiers. It's therefore a a pretty safe bet that Duetta Sigs were purchased only by dedicated audiophiles who treated them well. Apogees are also difficult to damage electrically, as they can absorb enormous amounts of amplifier power. Small children and pets are more likely to do them harm by poking/pawing at the woofer ribbons.

My short take on the Duetta Sigs is that they simply sound less like hi-fi equipment and more like music than damned near any other speaker I've heard in more than ten years of fotzing around in the High End. This is a technology which desperately deserves to be revived.

If you are looking for a superb speaker and have (1) a medium-to large room, (2) very high-resolution sources/electronics/wire, and (3) plenty of amplifier power, you should find yourself a pair of Duetta Sigs for a couple of thou or so and spend the rest of your audio stash on music.

After years of waiting, I finally managed to get my hands on a pair of Apogee Duetta Signature IIs. I paid $2,200, which I was told was a bit high, but since the pair I found were in mint condition, I was happy to pay a couple of hundred dollars extra.
My high end speaker ownership over the last twenty years ranges from a pair of $8,500 Ohms to $5,000 Infinities and much in between. This makes my new Apogees one of my least expensive speaker purchases. Nonetheless, if sound is the only criterion for judgment, then none of my previous speaker investments can compare with the Apogees. While they are lacking the booming bass of the Infinities, the bass they produce is accurate, quick, and tight and still goes below 30 hz. As to imaging and detail, those speakers have nothing under $10,000 to fear. Set up correctly while listening to a quality recording, they become transparent to the point where when standing a few feet in front of them, you still can’t localize the sound as coming from the speakers.

I will conclude by saying that I upgraded to the sound of the Apogee Duetta Signature ll's by selling my one-year-old speakers (I won’t mention the brand name to avoid hard feelings from those who now own that brand) costing 3 times the money. Of course, the Apogees cost close to $5,000 dollars when new as well. If you can find a pair in mint condition, buy them and upgrade, unless you can afford to spend $10,000 more.

Happy listening

Caren