From what I could gather from my encounters with Lewis, nuts is wide off the mark as a description. And his studio is a well organized place.

Getting back to the point of the thread, rather than the knee-jerk derogatory comments proffered: speaker design has suffered from the "monkey coffin" concept for years and years. B&O were among the first to abandon this, and to go exploring for alternative solutions. They've been joined by others, and the result has been better sound reproduction in living rooms. Whether the design appeals is a purely personal thing - there are those who still prefer B&O's column speakers to the far superior sound reproduction available with ALT technology.

I do have a pair of monkey coffin speakers, and while I like their sound, they're ugly to look at once you've gotten used to alternative designs. We should be pleased that Gallo is among the companies offering an alternative.

From an article by Peter Aczel:

 I have revived the old-time “monkey coffin” label, used by 1970s hi-fi salesmen, for this category of box speakers. There are dinky little monkey coffins and huge expensive monkey coffins, but they all sound like monkey coffins, more or less. If you seek sound that more closely resembles live music, you have to look into loudspeaker designs that depart from the standard model. Two of these have been reviewed in this Web ’zine, the Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 5 and the Linkwitz Lab “Orion.” They are the two best speakers known to me at this juncture, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t others. 

TripEnglish wrote:

John's spot on. While some would argue for the sonic merits of the Gallos, they are no better designed assembled than a pair of Yamahas. I'm talking form factor here. There are plenty of speakers out there that look radically different than B&O but still have a spark of passion and craftsmanship to them. These do not. They appear to be manufactured by RISD students. 

It's like a Gumpert and a Veyron. Both super-cars but clearly one company was not satisfied with only a narrow interpretation of performance. 

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and if he likes them then they're potentially the speakers for him! The original question had already acknowledged their uncommon design, all he wanted to know was what they sounded like - he didn't mention wanting to know about Gumperts or Veyrons!

When I started this thread I had only a very straight forward question in mind: how do the Stradas sound as compared to the BL3s.  Both makers claim that the placement of these speakers in a room is not critical for their performance.  I have the BL3s and like them very much, regardless of the fact that they are not ideally positioned in the room (you all know decoration and wife constraints...).  Since I have another room where I can upgrade my system, I thought of the Stradas and decided to see if anyone has had a direct experience with both of them.

I am glad, though, that the thread took a life of its own and took the path of a form/function and looks vs sound discussion.  This is really the essence of B&O and there will always be different opinions (some carved in stone) about such matters.

Anyway, I would still be glad to know if anyone has been able to compare both speakers in stereo setups.

Thanks again to all for the enjoyable reading!

Hi, yes I have ears-on experience of both speakers - I bought three pairs of Reference 3.1's recently and have six pairs of Beolab 3's in stock.  I listen to both models and happily own Reference 3.1's now.  It is in my interests to big-up the Beolab 3's but that wouldn't be giving a fair and informed opinion.

The comparison between Beolab 3's and Reference 3.1's is, for me, comparing driving an Audi TT (Beolab 3) with a Porsche Carrera Turbo, there simply is no comparison.  Both are superb in their own right and if you are fortunate enough to own either then you are a lucky person, the appeal of the design is subjective but if you look at them with your ears so-to-speak there is only one choice for me, and I would daresay anyone listening to the same set of speakers would agree with me.  It is like comparing Beolab 9's with Beolab 3's, only moreso.  IMHO the Gallos rest between Beolab 9 and 5 performance, absolutely stonking speakers, believe every positive review you have read about them.

I use a conventional Yamaha AV amp RX-V1065 £450 with an additional Behringer A500 amp to light up the second coil in the 3.1's and they are frankly phenomenal speakers, far superior to the Beolab 3's and frankly they should be superb at £3200 for the package.  I have this package for sale currently.

Steve and I worked on the job to which he referred in his original post, Steve has also assisted me with the choice of amps as above.  I think the Gallos now go down to 22hz out of the box with the asisstance of the Behringer, just marvellous.  Beolab 3's with Beolab 2's are superb but again IMHO if you go for the twin amp combo as above, the Gallo's just leave the Lab 3's behind - in terms of cost you would be looking at B&O at £5150 for sub and speakers alone, against £3200 for the Gallos, including dedicated amp and high quality AV amp - in any case and prices aside, the Gallo's leave the Beolab 3/2 Combo way behind, as IMHO they do Beolab 9's.

soundproof wrote:

However, as we're for some reason talking about MOMA - maybe TripEnglish will inform the multitudes as to why David Lewis says as follows on the front page of his website:

Three of his designs are on display in MoMA in New York (the museum of Modern Art). But he says he doesn't know which ones...

And how the B&O designer who knows precisely which of his designs are at MOMA feels about that?

The products are Beovox Cona, Beolab 6000, Beocord VX 5000... ;-)

Anyway talking about MoMA, the truth B&O Icon is definitly designed by Jacob Jensen:

The Beogram 4000!!!

And yes the Gallos are ugly! If you're looking for outstanding non B&O speakers, i can recommend some Piega speakers. They're handcraftet in Switzerland and designed by Hannes Wettstein. It's also possible to order it as a passiv speaker or with a built-in active module.

http://www.piega.ch/e/index.htm

BTW, I'm not working for Piega... ;-)

I can attest to KingofSnake's impressions. 

BL3s produce excellent sound, and have surprised many professional audio people and audio reviewers with their transparent fidelity - you can't push them to very loud output, as you get perceivable distortion then, but for most of the listening you'll do they're perfect. I know one person who has a Linn Universal Player connected to a pair of BL3s, and he swears it's among his favorite setups for diving into music. Like me, he's then using the BL3s as peripheral "headphone" units.

Here's the setup of a very serious music enthusiast, who wanted excellent sound without "monkey coffins" in another part of his house: 

He was convinced the BL3s did justice to his other hardware, and had fun making his audiophile friends sit slack-jawed in amazement at what they heard from the speakers.

I believe Dave Moulton uses BL3s as monitors for mixing sound, and have also seen them used in this way by others. People mixing music on their computers have discovered that BL3s are wonderful monitors for acoustic recordings, and that they can be set up with the computer and a DAC to do just that.
I have helped some traveling music professionals (concert and opera) with setting up a travel kit consisting of their laptop, BL3s, and the Apogee Duet DAC. They place the BL3s on the rubber flattop stand in their hotel rooms and have a perfect playback set-up which they control with their iPhones while stuck in yet another city for a performance.

However, BL3s are not good enough to fill a room with music at a very loud volume - the rubber on the "woofer" seems to have trouble keeping pace with the signal at longer throws, and you get muffling.

I've spent quite a bit of time listening to different Gallo speakers, and have liked what I heard. I own BL3 and BL5, however.

(I still have trouble understanding why the original poster's question about sound quality ended up in the MOMA, but that's just me.) 

Nice set up 'Proof, but it's a shame this 'serious music enthusiast' doesn't seem to care about hiding his cable runs. Perhaps he's the kind of guy that wouldn't understand how form can sometimes be as important as function, hence the original diversion to this thread?

This serious music enthusiast moves the speakers out on to the floor when listening to them, and would therefore have little benefit from "hiding his cable runs." The second set-up was quickly nixed, he found the sound was much better with the speakers out on the floor, and bought the floor stands. When used for regular listening, the speakers are against the back wall as shown, when he wanted to listen seriously, he moved them to a spot marked on the floor.

You're making some silly assumptions, that only speak to your own prejudices, and have little bearing on the discussion.

It's a question of making up one's mind as to whether we're discussing "tools" or decorative elements, I guess. In a few instances, the two can be combined, though it's quite amazing to see what some find elegant.

Someone actually likes this, for instance! Fairly low WAF here.

David Lewis' ideal speaker is invisible, and recreates perfect sound - probably not a candidate for MOMA, though. B&O meanwhile gives priority to the decorative and wife-friendly part of their specifications:

?

We're talking about B&O speakers here 'Proof. They're well-noted for their combination of tasteful design and their sound reproduction abilities, so good candidates for the 'tools vs. decorative elements' debate you seem unable to engage in. Isn't that paradoxical, that you can only see the virtue in one aspect of the overall performance of a product that is noted for combining both performance and style? I note that so far you have described others' views as 'inane', 'silly', and 'predjudiced'. You might feel that this thread has drifted off-topic a little bit, but you've hardly participated in a friendly or polite discussion yourself, particularly given the absence of such derogatory terms being applied to your own musings here.

j0hnbarker wrote:

Let's be honest chaps: they do look $h1t compared to BL3s. A bit like an over-sized motion sensor for a car alarm, or perhaps the dissected eyes from a huge robotic fly.

I took issue with the very derogatory and irrelevant nature of the posts. A one word "terrible" from a B&O dealer; and your less than helpful contribution, given that the original poster was inquiring about sound quality.