From: CHONGHGP@SGPVM1.VNET.IBM.COM (Peter Chong)
Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
Subject: Speaker speaker
Date: 8 Sep 92 21:25:18 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Originator: tjk@csd4.csd.uwm.edu

A couple of weeks ago, at the local hifi hangout, there appeared a new
speaker which threw the gauntlet in challange of the Wilson WATT/Puppys.

I listened at length to the challanger and here are my preliminary
conclusions of its performance:

The speaker is by a newish (?, so the store owner tells me...) company
called Rush Sound. The model I heard was called the Monument 2, and I
believe is the only product made by Rush. It incoporates a mini-monitor
in the classic shoebox shape and a large, selfpowered (175Wpc) subwoofer
made for Rush by Muse. The mini-monitor is made of high density particle
board glued together, and holes drilled for the drivers. It sports 3
drivers: the tweeter is a compression driver and is horn loaded (! I
thought I'd never mention horn loading in the same breath as high end..
but I did) made by TAD (the professional division of the folks at Pioneer)
and two 6inch woofers in D'Apolito configuration. The subwoofer is a slot
loaded design, with two 10inch drivers. One connects the output of one's
preamplifier to the woofer, the woofer has a high pass output which one
connects to one's poweramp, which in turn is connected to the satelites.

The system I listened to consists of: the Wadia 8 transport; the Wadia
X64-4 converter or occassionally the Wadia 2000 digilink 30 (old model)
via the ATT optical link; the Jadis JPL preamp; Jadis JA80 poweramp. The
cables used were Finestra silver from DA to pre, and a 5m long Gryphon
from the pre to woofer. A 1m length of Ensemble was used from the woofer
to the poweramp, and the cable from the poweramp to the monitors were the
Gryphon silver ribbons. I compared the system to my own system by memory
(I listened to the Rush system on 4 to 5 separate occassions, and immediately
after, commute home to listen to my system). My system is a comparatively
more modest: Esoteric P500 transport; Wadia X32 converter, linked via a
1m XLO digilink; Jadis DP60 preamplifier; Jadis Defy 7 poweramp; Wilson
WATT-3/Puppy. Cables were from Purist Audio for interconnects, and vdH
SCS12 for the speakers (I suspect the SCS12 has a slight glare in the upper
midrange/lower treble, and plan to change the speaker cable soon).

Comparison:

Rush Monument 2 versus the Wilson WATT-3/Puppy. The Rush excelled in
high frequencies. The highs were very airy, sweet and lacks any form of
glare. I comparison, the Wilson highs were analytical, and had trunckated
airiness. The images of the Rush were large, and convincing. The stage was
huge. In comparison, the Wilsons's images were more focussed, and 3D, but
smaller. The Wilson's stage was equally large. The Rush had a very powerful
bottomend, I guess reaching the mid 20s. The subwoofer was slightly slower
than the satelites (like the WATTs with the Entec woofer), not quite as
seamless as the WATTs with the Puppy. (BTW, the Wilsons without the super
expensive WHOW {I have never heard the WHOW}, never manages to go below
45Hz. The midrange of both speakers were excellent, the Rush had a rounder
softer sound, and the Wilsons presented a razor sharp, superclean mids.
Both mids driven by Jadis electronics were lush and liquid. The Rush
had a slightly more pronounced midrange than the Wilsons. This manifest
itself as a kinda very mild resonance at about 3kHz to 5kHz, maybe lower. The
Wilsons sound purer and was completely non-resonant.

What I would do: I still prefered the sound of the Wilsons overall. But
listening to Rush made me ache for the nonexisting low bass of the
WATT-Puppy even more...but the WHOW's forbidding price prevents me from
indulging in some 20Hz waves...:-(. The Rush came very close, and at
a lower price than the Wilsons, challanges its crown. If you are in
the market for a US$10k to $15k speaker, I suggest you listen to both
the Rush Monument 2, and the Wilson WATT/Puppy. And as a reference,
to the Avalon Ascent (or even Eclipse and save a few grands), the
Thiel CS5s, or the Ensemble Prima Donna (or Ensemble PA1 Reference
with the Profundo). At the moment, I still feel that for my listening
biases, the Wilsons reign. And amongst the other speakers I mentioned
here, the Rush takes second place. BTW, the Rush sells here for US$9.5k.

Note that the system used to drive the Rush was clearly superior to my
more modest system. Every component was at least one price class above
mine.