I have started looking around for the replacements for my spendor speakers. It will doubtless be a long quest as I want something with the scale and presence of the spens, but with a little more detail and fleetness of foot. I could move to neats, and in particular the elite, se or sx, but find the top end to glare a little from time to time.

On looking around the Usher Mini Dancer 2 and CP 6311 may well fill the requirement, but finding them to listen to is a major hike.

Has any one heard them, and could you try to describe the sound before I try to book a listening session.

Please feel free to chuck any thing else into the mix that you can think of

colin

I bought a pair of Mini-Dancer 2s about 6 weeks ago and I think they are pretty good, but then I would say that wouldn't I.

The HiFi+ review got it fairly well spot on, they are very difficult to describe as I find I am not actually listening to the speakers but to the music. All my test pieces have fallen by the wayside as I just let the lp/cd play all the way through. They play all types of music with ease, detail, soundstage, imageing all there. I am listening to them as I try and type this and it is difficult to do anything but listen. I was actually looking at buying a pair of Monitor Audio PL 200s when my circumstances changed slightly, so I went and auditioned the Ushers and I can honestly say they are nearly as good as the PL200s which are almost three times the price here in NZ.

I hope this incoherent ramble has been helpfull, don't hesitate to ask me any questions that might help to make more sense of it all.

Thanks Mike,

the partI find hardest to hang onto from a review is the 'tone' of them, and find a lot of items that are currently being described as good are relentlessy bright, and I wonder if I am confusing detail with bright.

I was at a bake off a couple of weeks back, and it started with the owners own system, mega bucks job, Reymo cdp, AR ref pre, wavac amp and some cafrea horns, never heard of the speakers before, but bloody awesome in size and quality. I thought that the system as was gelled superbly, balanced sound top to bottom. The first change was to take out the pre and substitute a dajango passive pre. The consenus was is was 'better'. I found it bright and relentless. On some tracks it was unlistenable for me, and I actually left the room.

I'll find the HiFi plus review and see what they say thanks
(the PL200's are about 5k here, the ushers half that)

I really like Usher speakers, lovely looking, beautiful build, but I haven't heard many because like the UK they are not popular here and were years without distribution, I just don't know what kind of bed fellows they would be with rega gear.

Usher is slowly becoming more well known here. They have a good reputation.

Carfrae - my recollection is of a tall slim horn loaded single driver (Lowther?) system. Brighter systems can be interpreted as better by some people because of the apparent improvement in resolution. A lot of people are beguiled by this.

Those Mini Dancer 2s are in a pretty hefty price bracket, normally beyond what I'd consider for Rega's main line of electronics. Others I would look at in that price range would be:

Naim Ovator S-400
Totem Forest
Kudos C2 or C20

I believe Colins tried the Totems and Kudos & Neats as well, it does sound an unusual combo Rega with Usher, but you never know.

Ushers are meant to be quite easy to drive generally, and they have a reputation for good rhythmic timing and swing which would be in consonance with the Rega presentation so it wouoldn't surprise me if they worked well. I just don't have experience with them.

I always thought they would sound like Sonus Fabers, I wonder what gives me that impression.

I hear Usher with Calyx, what a sound.

The Amphions are a great speaker I have the 520, extended detailed top end without 1% of harshness a solid well articulated mid and tight extended informative bass, there was a review on the wigwam at one of the shows and people preferred them to a £15k set of Martens, not an ideal thingbto say as different kit and all that butbthe guy had his Martens on the end of his own system which he loved then someone popped the Amphions on the end and the rest is history.
I have heard the ushers but I preferred the top end on the Amphions, give them some consideration. They are not as visually appealing mind which I guess will effect the decision as the ushers do look like furniture!

Problems with the the focal be tweeter is they can be controlled with the right gear but beware

The Dancer series all have diamond tweeters now which seem to be well behaved. I know what you mean about relentless brightness though Colin and it was one of the things I was listening for. Go have a listen, I did a 600km round trip to audition mine and I think it was worth it. Possibly the only problem you might have is that they are a 4 ohm load.

Where they actually Focal tweeters or copies? I thought they used their own beryllium tweeters as there was some fuss over them a year or so back.

They were copies as far as I know and the fuss was because they didn't have any beryllium in them. The new ones are their own design etc. and are supposed to sound better, I couldn't say as I never heard the old ones.

I was talking about the Neats guys, sorry I wasnt very clear.

I don't think the Neat treble unit in the Motives is a focal either, it doesn't say it is in the motive brochure, I remember speaking to Derek a few years ago and he told me it wasn't a focal unit either.

I heard the Focal tweeter and didn't like it, it was rather bright and hard to my ear lugs.