Description
Falcon Acoustics GC 6500R Reference Speakers lovely condition and perfect working order premium version with exotic veneer £800 more than normal retail work best in normal UK living room UK DELIVERY BY PALLET OR BY Hand depending on your location Big and bold-looking, though hardly the most humungous speakers to pass through these doors in recent times, the GC6500R exudes a air of luxury thanks to those veneers, a smoked glass top panel and Alcantara (high quality synthetic suede) on the front baffle. The purposeful solidity and sheer heft of the cabinets is made all the more elegant by their lute-like shaping while the substantial cast alloy outriggers are fitted with some seriously heavy-duty spikes for rock-solid stability. The enclosures themselves are made in Italy, the source of some of the best furniture-grade cabinets in the business, and are built from 25mm-thick laminated MDF with an extra 9mm of internal damping, over which those exotic – but not too frivolous – finishes are laid. The front baffle is even thicker, at 38mm, and is profiled for minimal diffraction (for which that microfibre suede covering also helps) with chamfered cut-outs for the drive units to optimise dispersion. Glam Metal The 18mm rear panel is reinforced with a custom metal tooling that also provides heatsinking for the attached crossover and a location for the single set of custom-made nickel-plated terminals. All the metalwork found here is machined from top-quality MIC6 cast aluminium plate by what the company describes as F1 ultra-precision engineers. So theres clearly a lot going on in this speaker, and thats before we even get to the drive units, the most striking feature of which is the use of ultra-strong, ultra-light Graphene in the mid/bass drivers. The twin 18cm bass drivers are described as Sonaweave Graphene Enhanced Nano-Platelet Composite Cone woofers, the Graphene coating allowing them to be made 60% lighter and thinner than conventional cones, yet with superior rigidity and damping. Theyre reflex-loaded using a hidden, downward-venting port working into the space created by the plinth-and-spike assembly. Above the bass units sits the 5cm dome midrange driver, mounted in a hypocycloid (think Spirograph-drawn circles within circles) wave guide designed after extensive computer modelling. This mid unit was seen in the R.A.M Studio 30 floorstander [HFN Apr 19], modified here to lower distortion and yield a smoother sound. The ribbon tweeter has also been tweaked, all in the quest for a smooth response. The faceplate apparently plays a major part in this while the heavyweight crossover PCB uses gold-plated copper tracks, close tolerance air core inductors and polypropylene capacitors. Luted Objects Big and bold-looking, though hardly the most humungous speakers to pass through these doors in recent times, the GC6500R exudes a air of luxury thanks to those veneers, a smoked glass top panel and Alcantara (high quality synthetic suede) on the front baffle. The purposeful solidity and sheer heft of the cabinets is made all the more elegant by their lute-like shaping while the substantial cast alloy outriggers are fitted with some seriously heavy-duty spikes for rock-solid stability. 420falcon.bac The enclosures themselves are made in Italy, the source of some of the best furniture-grade cabinets in the business, and are built from 25mm-thick laminated MDF with an extra 9mm of internal damping, over which those exotic – but not too frivolous – finishes are laid. The front baffle is even thicker, at 38mm, and is profiled for minimal diffraction (for which that microfibre suede covering also helps) with chamfered cut-outs for the drive units to optimise dispersion. Glam Metal The 18mm rear panel is reinforced with a custom metal tooling that also provides heatsinking for the attached crossover and a location for the single set of custom-made nickel-plated terminals. All the metalwork found here is machined from top-quality MIC6 cast aluminium plate by what the company describes as F1 ultra-precision engineers. So theres clearly a lot going on in this speaker, and thats before we even get to the drive units, the most striking feature of which is the use of ultra-strong, ultra-light Graphene in the mid/bass drivers. The twin 18cm bass drivers are described as Sonaweave Graphene Enhanced Nano-Platelet Composite Cone woofers, the Graphene coating allowing them to be made 60% lighter and thinner than conventional cones, yet with superior rigidity and damping. Theyre reflex-loaded using a hidden, downward-venting port working into the space created by the plinth-and-spike assembly. Above the bass units sits the 5cm dome midrange driver, mounted in a hypocycloid (think Spirograph-drawn circles within circles) wave guide designed after extensive computer modelling. This mid unit was seen in the R.A.M Studio 30 floorstander [HFN Apr 19], modified here to lower distortion and yield a smoother sound. The ribbon tweeter has also been tweaked, all in the quest for a smooth response. The faceplate apparently plays a major part in this while the heavyweight crossover PCB uses gold-plated copper tracks, close tolerance air core inductors and polypropylene capacitors. Luted Objects Big and bold-looking, though hardly the most humungous speakers to pass through these doors in recent times, the GC6500R exudes a air of luxury thanks to those veneers, a smoked glass top panel and Alcantara (high quality synthetic suede) on the front baffle. The purposeful solidity and sheer heft of the cabinets is made all the more elegant by their lute-like shaping while the substantial cast alloy outriggers are fitted with some seriously heavy-duty spikes for rock-solid stability. 420falcon.bac The enclosures themselves are made in Italy, the source of some of the best furniture-grade cabinets in the business, and are built from 25mm-thick laminated MDF with an extra 9mm of internal damping, over which those exotic – but not too frivolous – finishes are laid. The front baffle is even thicker, at 38mm, and is profiled for minimal diffraction (for which that microfibre suede covering also helps) with chamfered cut-outs for the drive units to optimise dispersion. Glam Metal The 18mm rear panel is reinforced with a custom metal tooling that also provides heatsinking for the attached crossover and a location for the single set of custom-made nickel-plated terminals. All the metalwork found here is machined from top-quality MIC6 cast aluminium plate by what the company describes as F1 ultra-precision engineers. So theres clearly a lot going on in this speaker, and thats before we even get to the drive units, the most striking feature of which is the use of ultra-strong, ultra-light Graphene in the mid/bass drivers. The twin 18cm bass drivers are described as Sonaweave Graphene Enhanced Nano-Platelet Composite Cone woofers, the Graphene coating allowing them to be made 60% lighter and thinner than conventional cones, yet with superior rigidity and damping. Theyre reflex-loaded using a hidden, downward-venting port working into the space created by the plinth-and-spike assembly. Above the bass units sits the 5cm dome midrange driver, mounted in a hypocycloid (think Spirograph-drawn circles within circles) wave guide designed after extensive computer modelling. This mid unit was seen in the R.A.M Studio 30 floorstander [HFN Apr 19], moThe speakers benefited from a position that offered good breathing space from the side and rear walls, and with a bit of toe-in – just enough to see the outer faces of the cabinets from the listening position. Moreover, while Falcons specification suggest these are a fairly sensitive speaker, after KHs lab work revealed a somewhat challenging impedance I was pretty glad to have amplification befitting speakers at this price level. This took the form of Constellation Inspiration monoblocks [HFN Oct 19], which are capable of a useful 400W/8ohm without breaking too much of a sweat. These amplifiers proved capable of managing – or at least masking – some of the electrical foibles KH noted, but it would be prudent to urge purchasers to choose amplifiers in the upper limit of the 25-300W power-handling range Falcon suggests for the GC6500R. Certainly my brief attempts at pushing the speakers really hard, even with the heavyweight Constellation Monos, suggest that using these speakers with relatively low-powered amps might well be testing your luck. Solid, bombproof power is the best bet. That said, the GC6500Rs sounded very easygoing from the off, with a warm, measured sound unlikely to cause any upset among listeners. Playing Iiro Rantalas My History Of Jazz [ACT 9531-2], which combines some of Bachs Goldberg Variations with Rantalas take on jazz standards, the Falcon GC6500Rs responded well to the crisp, wide-open recording. Everything from the piano to the way brushes pitter-patter on drum-skins was clearly laid out, even if the focus of the soundstage and the positioning of the performers within it could have been more precisely delineated. The trade-off for the smooth, no-shocks sound is a loss of some crispness and air in the treble, which can make imaging less than pin-point on occasions while diminishing the sense of space around the performers. Speed Reading Perhaps more surprising is that while the bass here has excellent speed and attack, making bass lines easy to follow, and high-speed playing such as Mark Kings characteristic technique on Level 42s Remixes set [Polydor 513 085-2] very much toe-tapping, it soon dawns that this is as a result of the bass being lean and taut rather than fulsome. Or at least not possessing the kind of rich, deep extension one might expect from speakers of this size, weight and price. True, the speakers cover their tracks reasonably well, thanks to that low-end agility, but theres little sign of that satisfying growl and rumble delivered by some rival designs. For all that the GC6500Rs balance sounds smooth and warm with the majority of tracks played, from the Brodsky Quartets Petits Fours album [Chandos CHAN 10708] to the scale of the Royal Festival Hall organ opening ELPs The Three Fates, from the bands eponymous first album [Atlantic 781 519-2], I was still left feeling that these recordings had more to give, both in terms of power and impact, and openness and expression. Built To Scale On the plus side, the Reference GC6500R floorstanders never sound forced or overblown, and theres none of that forwardness some find a risk with speakers trying too hard to be hi-fi. So brightness and brashness never enter the equation, and even the most abrasive rock mixes – along with some early classical digital content – is toned down and warmed up. Thats both a good thing and, depending on your viewpoint, something of a compromise because the one word I found appearing most frequently in my notes was inoffensive. So the big wash of sound is certainly room-filling, but it doesnt always draw the listener into the heart of the music. Its too of a piece for that, with some of the detail of both recording and performance glossed over in favour of sheer scale and presence. Crank things up – we are back to the need for a big amp again here – and the GC6500Rs do breathe that bit more freely, with instruments and voices separating a little more convincingly within that enveloping pool of sound. These big, impressive-looking speakers certainly put subtlety ahead of shocks! Hi-Fi News Verdict The Reference GC6500R speakers sound smooth, controlled and inoffensive on first encounter, and typically stay that way, their unflappable civility largely in keeping with their high-quality build and finish, weight and price. The lush, room-filling wash of sound is readily accessible but, for some listeners, this will be perceived as a trade-off against incisive detail, dynamics and compelling involvement.dified here to lower distortion and yield a smoother sound. The ribbon tweeter has also been tweaked, all in the quest for a smooth response. The faceplate apparently plays a major part in this while the heavyweight crossover PCB uses gold-plated copper tracks, close tolerance air core inductors and polypropylene capacitors. Falcon Acoustics GC 6500R Reference Speakers lovely condition and perfect working order premium version with exotic veneer £800 more than normal retail work best in normal UK living room UK DELIVERY BY PALLET OR BY Hand depending on your location Big and bold-looking, though hardly the most humungous speakers to pass through these doors in recent times, the GC6500R exudes a air of luxury thanks to those veneers, a smoked glass top panel and Alcantara (high quality synthetic suede) on the front baffle. The purposeful solidity and sheer heft of the cabinets is made all the more elegant by their lute-like shaping while the substantial cast alloy outriggers are fitted with some seriously heavy-duty spikes for rock-solid stability. The enclosures themselves are made in Italy, the source of some of the best furniture-grade cabinets in the business, and are built from 25mm-thick laminated MDF with an extra 9mm of internal damping, over which those exotic – but not too frivolous – finishes are laid. The front baffle is even thicker, at 38mm, and is profiled for minimal diffraction (for which that microfibre suede covering also helps) with chamfered cut-outs for the drive units to optimise dispersion. Glam Metal The 18mm rear panel is reinforced with a custom metal tooling that also provides heatsinking for the attached crossover and a location for the single set of custom-made nickel-plated terminals. All the metalwork found here is machined from top-quality MIC6 cast aluminium plate by what the company describes as F1 ultra-precision engineers. So theres clearly a lot going on in this speaker, and thats before we even get to the drive units, the most striking feature of which is the use of ultra-strong, ultra-light Graphene in the mid/bass drivers. The twin 18cm bass drivers are described as Sonaweave Graphene Enhanced Nano-Platelet Composite Cone woofers, the Graphene coating allowing them to be made 60% lighter and thinner than conventional cones, yet with superior rigidity and damping. Theyre reflex-loaded using a hidden, downward-venting port working into the space created by the plinth-and-spike assembly. Above the bass units sits the 5cm dome midrange driver, mounted in a hypocycloid (think Spirograph-drawn circles within circles) wave guide designed after extensive computer modelling. This mid unit was seen in the R.A.M Studio 30 floorstander [HFN Apr 19], modified here to lower distortion and yield a smoother sound. The ribbon tweeter has also been tweaked, all in the quest for a smooth response. The faceplate apparently plays a major part in this while the heavyweight crossover PCB uses gold-plated copper tracks, close tolerance air core inductors and polypropylene capacitors. Luted Objects Big and bold-looking, though hardly the most humungous speakers to pass through these doors in recent times, the GC6500R exudes a air of luxury thanks to those veneers, a smoked glass top panel and Alcantara (high quality synthetic suede) on the front baffle. The purposeful solidity and sheer heft of the cabinets is made all the more elegant by their lute-like shaping while the substantial cast alloy outriggers are fitted with some seriously heavy-duty spikes for rock-solid stability. 420falcon.bac The enclosures themselves are made in Italy, the source of some of the best furniture-grade cabinets in the business, and are built from 25mm-thick laminated MDF with an extra 9mm of internal damping, over which those exotic – but not too frivolous – finishes are laid. The front baffle is even thicker, at 38mm, and is profiled for minimal diffraction (for which that microfibre suede covering also helps) with chamfered cut-outs for the drive units to optimise dispersion. Glam Metal The 18mm rear panel is reinforced with a custom metal tooling that also provides heatsinking for the attached crossover and a location for the single set of custom-made nickel-plated terminals. All the metalwork found here is machined from top-quality MIC6 cast aluminium plate by what the company describes as F1 ultra-precision engineers. So theres clearly a lot going on in this speaker, and thats before we even get to the drive units, the most striking feature of which is the use of ultra-strong, ultra-light Graphene in the mid/bass drivers. The twin 18cm bass drivers are described as Sonaweave Graphene Enhanced Nano-Platelet Composite Cone woofers, the Graphene coating allowing them to be made 60% lighter and thinner than conventional cones, yet with superior rigidity and damping. Theyre reflex-loaded using a hidden, downward-venting port working into the space created by the plinth-and-spike assembly. Above the bass units sits the 5cm dome midrange driver, mounted in a hypocycloid (think Spirograph-drawn circles within circles) wave guide designed after extensive computer modelling. This mid unit was seen in the R.A.M Studio 30 floorstander [HFN Apr 19], modified here to lower distortion and yield a smoother sound. The ribbon tweeter has also been tweaked, all in the quest for a smooth response. The faceplate apparently plays a major part in this while the heavyweight crossover PCB uses gold-plated copper tracks, close tolerance air core inductors and polypropylene capacitors. Luted Objects Big and bold-looking, though hardly the most humungous speakers to pass through these doors in recent times, the GC6500R exudes a air of luxury thanks to those veneers, a smoked glass top panel and Alcantara (high quality synthetic suede) on the front baffle. The purposeful solidity and sheer heft of the cabinets is made all the more elegant by their lute-like shaping while the substantial cast alloy outriggers are fitted with some seriously heavy-duty spikes for rock-solid stability. 420falcon.bac The enclosures themselves are made in Italy, the source of some of the best furniture-grade cabinets in the business, and are built from 25mm-thick laminated MDF with an extra 9mm of internal damping, over which those exotic – but not too frivolous – finishes are laid. The front baffle is even thicker, at 38mm, and is profiled for minimal diffraction (for which that microfibre suede covering also helps) with chamfered cut-outs for the drive units to optimise dispersion. Glam Metal The 18mm rear panel is reinforced with a custom metal tooling that also provides heatsinking for the attached crossover and a location for the single set of custom-made nickel-plated terminals. All the metalwork found here is machined from top-quality MIC6 cast aluminium plate by what the company describes as F1 ultra-precision engineers. So theres clearly a lot going on in this speaker, and thats before we even get to the drive units, the most striking feature of which is the use of ultra-strong, ultra-light Graphene in the mid/bass drivers. The twin 18cm bass drivers are described as Sonaweave Graphene Enhanced Nano-Platelet Composite Cone woofers, the Graphene coating allowing them to be made 60% lighter and thinner than conventional cones, yet with superior rigidity and damping. Theyre reflex-loaded using a hidden, downward-venting port working into the space created by the plinth-and-spike assembly. Above the bass units sits the 5cm dome midrange driver, mounted in a hypocycloid (think Spirograph-drawn circles within circles) wave guide designed after extensive computer modelling. This mid unit was seen in the R.A.M Studio 30 floorstander [HFN Apr 19], moThe speakers benefited from a position that offered good breathing space from the side and rear walls, and with a bit of toe-in – just enough to see the outer faces of the cabinets from the listening position. Moreover, while Falcons specification suggest these are a fairly sensitive speaker, after KHs lab work revealed a somewhat challenging impedance I was pretty glad to have amplification befitting speakers at this price level. This took the form of Constellation Inspiration monoblocks [HFN Oct 19], which are capable of a useful 400W/8ohm without breaking too much of a sweat. These amplifiers proved capable of managing – or at least masking – some of the electrical foibles KH noted, but it would be prudent to urge purchasers to choose amplifiers in the upper limit of the 25-300W power-handling range Falcon suggests for the GC6500R. Certainly my brief attempts at pushing the speakers really hard, even with the heavyweight Constellation Monos, suggest that using these speakers with relatively low-powered amps might well be testing your luck. Solid, bombproof power is the best bet. That said, the GC6500Rs sounded very easygoing from the off, with a warm, measured sound unlikely to cause any upset among listeners. Playing Iiro Rantalas My History Of Jazz [ACT 9531-2], which combines some of Bachs Goldberg Variations with Rantalas take on jazz standards, the Falcon GC6500Rs responded well to the crisp, wide-open recording. Everything from the piano to the way brushes pitter-patter on drum-skins was clearly laid out, even if the focus of the soundstage and the positioning of the performers within it could have been more precisely delineated. The trade-off for the smooth, no-shocks sound is a loss of some crispness and air in the treble, which can make imaging less than pin-point on occasions while diminishing the sense of space around the performers. Speed Reading Perhaps more surprising is that while the bass here has excellent speed and attack, making bass lines easy to follow, and high-speed playing such as Mark Kings characteristic technique on Level 42s Remixes set [Polydor 513 085-2] very much toe-tapping, it soon dawns that this is as a result of the bass being lean and taut rather than fulsome. Or at least not possessing the kind of rich, deep extension one might expect from speakers of this size, weight and price. True, the speakers cover their tracks reasonably well, thanks to that low-end agility, but theres little sign of that satisfying growl and rumble delivered by some rival designs. For all that the GC6500Rs balance sounds smooth and warm with the majority of tracks played, from the Brodsky Quartets Petits Fours album [Chandos CHAN 10708] to the scale of the Royal Festival Hall organ opening ELPs The Three Fates, from the bands eponymous first album [Atlantic 781 519-2], I was still left feeling that these recordings had more to give, both in terms of power and impact, and openness and expression. Built To Scale On the plus side, the Reference GC6500R floorstanders never sound forced or overblown, and theres none of that forwardness some find a risk with speakers trying too hard to be hi-fi. So brightness and brashness never enter the equation, and even the most abrasive rock mixes – along with some early classical digital content – is toned down and warmed up. Thats both a good thing and, depending on your viewpoint, something of a compromise because the one word I found appearing most frequently in my notes was inoffensive. So the big wash of sound is certainly room-filling, but it doesnt always draw the listener into the heart of the music. Its too of a piece for that, with some of the detail of both recording and performance glossed over in favour of sheer scale and presence. Crank things up – we are back to the need for a big amp again here – and the GC6500Rs do breathe that bit more freely, with instruments and voices separating a little more convincingly within that enveloping pool of sound. These big, impressive-looking speakers certainly put subtlety ahead of shocks! Hi-Fi News Verdict The Reference GC6500R speakers sound smooth, controlled and inoffensive on first encounter, and typically stay that way, their unflappable civility largely in keeping with their high-quality build and finish, weight and price. The lush, room-filling wash of sound is readily accessible but, for some listeners, this will be perceived as a trade-off against incisive detail, dynamics and compelling involvement.dified here to lower distortion and yield a smoother sound. The ribbon tweeter has also been tweaked, all in the quest for a smooth response. The faceplate apparently plays a major part in this while the heavyweight crossover PCB uses gold-plated copper tracks, close tolerance air core inductors and polypropylene capacitors. Get images that make Supersized seem small. THE simple solution for eBay sellers.
|
Live search