Sonic Impressions



Sound Without Room Treatment



Before replacing my room treatment, I first removed all the existing absorbing and diffusing room treatment bit by bit and listened to the sound from the Gradients as this was done. Yes, I could hear the differences as the acoustic treatment was subtracted, but the differences were not large, the tonal balance was basically unchanged, imaging and staging remained very fine, and there was no added "room roar" or distortion from reflections of mids and highs off the walls. The primary difference was a very mild case of slap-echo audible on the voices of studio announcers on classical music station WFMT. Such voices should sound quite dry since they are speaking in a small well-damped control room and that's the way they sound with the Gradients or Harbeths with the acoustic treatment. Without room treatment, it sounded like the room they were talking in was a fairly live room—no real echo, just the sound of a live, untreated room, as my listening room now was.



Sound With New Room Treatment



Here's a "brief" summary of my sonic impressions so far, after having the Gradient 1.4 speakers in my listening room with the new room treatment for a few weeks now. For comparison, I'll refer to the Harbeth M40.2, Janszen Valentina Active, and Stirling Broadcast LS3/6, all of which I've had in this same small 13' x 11' x 8.5' room for extended periods since 2015.



I'd say that the Harbeths are better than the Gradients in terms of that sense of "authority" on large orchestral works, but, given my prior experience of the Gradient "house sound" through my ownership of the Gradient 1.3, 1.5, and Revolution Active, I expected that. Few speakers match the big Harbeths in that respect unless they are much bigger yet and then they really can't be used in a small room from up close.



These new Gradients, unexpectedly, match the Harbeth "midrange magic." The clarity and tonal realism of human voices is startlingly good tonally and in terms of spatial focus, definitely the best I've experienced. Male and female voices are equally well served, either solo or in chorus.



The Gradients are superior to the Harbeth M40.2 in terms of having smooth response bottom to top without equalization. They really don't need equalization in my room, placed basically where all the other speakers were. In this same configuration, the Janszen Valentina Actives also did not need equalization, while both the Harbeths and Stirlings did, I felt, primarily in the midbass area, but also in the midrange (Harbeth between 500 and 1000 Hz, Stirling between 1 kHz and 2 kHz).



Compared to the M40.2s, the Gradient 1.4s have a superior sense of coherence in near-field listening (about 55 inches from the speakers drivers in my set up with each of these speakers) and that is saying a lot since the Harbeths are so good at that for large speakers. But apparently you can't beat coaxial drivers for sounding like one driver from close up. Because of this, the images and stage focus uncannily well and I just relax into the presentation.



The Gradient 1.4s are even better in my room than the Janszens' in their ability to pull apart the instrumental lines and have everything displayed clearly while yet sounding like an ensemble. This was unexpected given my previous Gradient experience, but it was one of the first things I noticed about the 1.4s' presentation. The Janszens previously were the best I've ever heard at that. In fairness, I think I was pushing the coherence of the Janszens listening to them as close up as I was so that probably means I wasn't hearing them at their best in terms of coherence and high frequency smoothness. But, in my room, this is how I hear it.



I want to emphasize how strikingly clear and low in distortion the Gradient 1.4s sound. Perhaps my comments on hearing instrumental lines so clearly suggests that, but it's more than that. Individual instruments and voices are really clear and clean, strikingly so, without any added high frequency brightness or edge.



The Harbeth M40.2 bass does go 10 Hz or so deeper and is generally somewhat fuller/warmer sounding. But the new Gradients have bass superior to the active Janszens in my room. The Gradient bass is also better defined than the Harbeth bass was and yet doesn't lack for midbass or lower midrange warmth. (I equalized away excess bass warmth in the Harbeths and Stirlings, but left the midbass/lower midrange a bit warmer than what the Gradient 1.4s produce unequalized.) I hear no suck out in the power range (100 to 300 Hz). Unlike the Gradient 1.5 and Revolution (with or without the added sub-towers), the bass of the 1.4 has plenty of impact and can easily startle you on bass transients.



Imaging and staging with the Gradients varies more from recording to recording than with any speaker I've ever owned, and that was before I re-did my room treatment. You may or may not like this. As I already mentioned, this is one aspect of the Gradient sound you may respect but not love. Gradients will reveal the spatial mess of many recordings, refusing to smooth out, blur, or sugar coat this aspect of what is actually on the recording. Recordings get minimal help from your listening room's acoustics. In contrast, the Harbeth M40.2 moves most commercial recordings toward a more even spread of staging and imaging, smoothing out the microphone "pools" a bit or more and creating a more plausible spatial presentation from even mediocre recordings.



On the other hand, with excellent stereo miking, or on studio productions where the space is electronically created through phase manipulation, the 1.4s will drop your jaw and have you exclaiming "whoa!" or some such expletive. By comparison, with the Harbeths, Stirlings, and Janszens you'll just nod in appreciation.



The deep bass is somewhat similar in quality and extension to what I had with the Janszen Valentina Active in my room. If anything, the deep bass on things like electronica is more profound. Certainly it is more startling in its definition, attack, sustain, length and cleanness of decay. The Gradient bass is also a bit warmer and gives a better feeling of "authority" than did the Janszens. The M40.2s have yet more extension and weight and that satisfying and elusive "authority" quality which comes, I think, from more air movement and richer response in the 100 -300 Hz region.



But if you want real room lock from low bass pedals on pipe organs, you will "need" a sub or two or more. The LS3/6 + Swarm in this room was really good for that sort of thing on pieces like the Gnomus section of Pictures at an Exhibition on the Dorian Jean Guillou album, better even than the Harbeth 40.2.



Remember, the Gradient 1.4 IS a small speaker with modestly sized 8" woofer, aluminum, floor firing, and ported though it may be. But the bass is considerably better than that of the unassisted LS3/6 which had a similarly sized woofer. The Gradient bass extends lower, is more defined, and equals the desirable "punchy" nature of the LS3/6 bass.



The treble is another area where the new 1.4 has bested prior Gradients. For whatever reason, the treble now seems fully competitive with the likes of the M40.2, Janszen, and Stirling. I hear no roughness or top-octave roll off. High strings on well-recorded material seem just right, as do struck cymbals. The treble is incredibly open, nice and airy, and sounds extremely low in distortion. There is no excess in the mid-treble (the 4 kHz area), as there can be with many speakers.



Since the Gradient 1.4, like the other Gradients is a relatively short speaker, you should be prepared to set low. As with the others, I accomplish this by removing the seat cushion of my Drexel chair, sitting on the box spring directly. With the seat cushion removed, my ears are down around 33.25 inches above the carpet. That is about right for this 34-inch tall speaker. At this listening height, I tilt the head unit just a bit up to aim straight at my ears. I'm extremely picky about where the stage and images on it appear to be in front of my eyes. I don't want to look up or down on the images/stage. With this configuration, the images/stage seem to be straight ahead, which is the presentation I like. I had no problem with this aspect of the sound of the Harbeths and Stirlings, but the Janszens' stage was difficult to arrange to be high enough for my taste when listened to from such close range.



There is no problem with the vertical size of images, either. The Gradient Revolution Active could be difficult in this respect and the Janszens even more so. Especially with my new room treatment, the 1.4 images are at the right vertical size, not too short (certainly not too tall as they can be with large dipole panel speakers) and the hall ambience goes way up and around for a very nice feeling of envelopment.



There is one other aspect of the presentation which may take longer with the speakers to get a better vocabulary to express. But for now I'll just call it involvement. Even when the imaging is "wrong" because of poor recording miking, the presentation is so darn interesting that it still draws you in and has you smiling in appreciation. There is also the moment-to-moment changes in dynamic and tonal detail, the startlingly clean suddenness of transients (even of bows on strings), the interplay of instrumental lines in an ensemble so clear yet so intertwined. Yes, these pull me into recordings in a way previous speakers have not.



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