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Their next most endearing personality trait concerns their delivery of detail. First, the CDTII tweeter is spectacular. It's better than any tweeter I've heard in a speaker anywhere near the Ref 3.1's price. Not only is it smooth and extended, its 300° of dispersion give the Gallos an uncommonly large sweet spot plus a treble power response that few speakers can match. Bright? Edgy? Hyper-detailed? I couldn't be so excited about the speakers if any of those applied. Smooth? Extended? Musically detailed? You bet. The CDTII has a way of reaching into massed strings for an uncanny level of detail without ever making properly recorded percussion or brass sound unduly bright or harsh. The treble is not so tilted up that you'll be struck by the presence of a supernatural amount of air on your recordings. Yet on well-produced records, you'll be seduced by the engulfing sense of space that's laid out before and around you.


If you can hear where the midrange gives way to the tweeter here, you are cursed with better hearing than I. Cursed? Yeah. If you can't enjoy the Gallos, there aren't many speakers left that you will be able to enjoy. Throughout the midrange, the Gallos exhibit the same degree of detail as the treble, which is to say -- once again and in my room -- to near perfection. Through the midrange, I'm reminded of the muRata ES103A super tweeter's stunning effect of sharpening up the perception of previously veiled detail. To recap that review, the ES103A's sphere of influence spanned the entire range of a speaker, including the midrange and bass. Detail increased everywhere - as did transparency and microdynamic finesse. With the Gallo speaker, I'm left to wonder how much of its sterling midrange performance is really owed to the superior performance and extension of the CDTII tweeter.
Yes, perfection is a very strong word here. I don't use it lightly. When it comes to the rendering of detail -- particularly in a smaller room -- what you're really talking about is a balancing act that weighs the extraction of detail against a musically involving coherence. If you want ultra detail, you can find it in other speakers such as the JMlabs and similar designs. You can find speakers that slice and dice their way through the music. What I don't think you'll find is a speaker that does so and still remains musical. At the very least, such speakers are so hifi-ish as to be distracting. At worst, they sound like lab instruments that strip the musicality off your discs. The Gallos are wonderfully detailed and wonderful speakers whereby to evaluate upstream components. That's how transparent they are. Yet they never slice or dice. They deliver the music completely intact, the way it was meant to be reproduced for real enjoyment and total involvement.


Frequent readers will have heard me ascribe this particular performance aspect to some other speakers before. The very excellent $1500 (factory-direct) ACI Sapphire XL comes to mind as does the $4000 Krell Resolution 3. I reviewed one of my favorite monitors for Soundstage! which achieved the same degree of success: the $8900 Morel Octwin 5.2. That's some really good company for the Ref3.1s to be rubbing shoulders with. What sets 'em apart is both their extended bass response as well as the fact that they are more efficient and easier to drive than any of those other speakers. The Ref 3.1 combines all of the aforementioned qualities with a sense of grandeur and ease that none of these other speakers can approximate. That makes them special.


Another speaker that competes directly with the Gallo is the Thiel PCS, one of my favorite monitors. The Thiels look and sound great. The PCS has been gone too long from casa Potis to make any meaningful comparisons. All I can say is that -- if memory serves -- both the Thiel and the Gallo are terrific little speakers through the midrange and treble and share a level of detail and transparency as well as imaging precision that transcends most of the competition. But even the little Thiel can't hope to keep pace with the Gallos when it comes to macrodynamics, bass extension and slam.
Below the midrange, with or without S.A amplifier, the Gallos are tunable in a way that no other speaker I've had in my room was. I'm referring to the fact that you can adjust the midbass response by swapping the right and left speaker such that the woofers face each other or outward toward the corners of the room. In my space, I found that when the woofers face each other, the midbass is slightly yet importantly reinforced. When the woofers face outward, the midbass response is, well - not elevated. I can't categorically say which is more linear or natural. It'll completely depend on the speakers' interaction with your room. Listen both ways, then judge and choose. Joe Jackson's Volume 4 [RCD 10638] and Peter Gabriel's UP [Geffen 0694933882] are two very full-sounding and bass-rich CDs. Either of them will tell you when you've got the speakers dialed for the most natural bass. Configured in the wrong way for your room, the sound will become overly thick and slow. When things are right, there's a lot of bass that's full of punch and excellent articulation. [I favor the outward-firing orientation in my setup as more linear, noting the same midbass enhancement in the other direction. It seems this effect is universal, just not its applicability which depends on what's more suitable for a given room - Ed.]

Image focus is excellent, too. Soundstage width is as good as I've experienced and better than many. Depth is very good as well. While I've never heard that comment from anybody who enjoys the Gallos at home (in other words, someone with actual experience), I have heard comments to the effect that the Refs throw an image height that is, shall we say, challenged. That's true. They don't image as tall as some really gargantuan loudspeakers or others that absolutely excel in that regard. At the same time, I have to wonder if those complaints aren't really imaginary. My experience with ceiling-mounted speakers (Magnepan CC2s) and floor-mounted speakers (Thiel PowerPoint 1.2) has demonstrated how the brain is notoriously poor at locating sounds in the vertical axis. It requires that a listener let go of what he thinks he knows in that regard. Listen with your eyes open and the brain will have a tendency to associate the soundstage with the speakers' physical contour and height. But close your eyes, put on an LP of Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue [Columbia PC 8163] and relinquish the visual memory of the speaker's physical scale or lack thereof. I think that most listeners will be surprised by how the soundstage now releases from the physicality of the speakers. The Gallos completely disappear in the horizontal plane. If you allow the brain to let them do the same in the vertical axis, they will leave nothing but one giant stage vividly populated by performers surrounded with real space. Larry Carlton's LP Alone/But Never Alone [MCA 5689] and Brooks Williams' Little Lion [Signature Sounds SIG 1255] produced holographic guitars painted on an invisible canvas as instruments were suspended before me with reach-out-and-touch-it realism.
And we're not talking one-size-fits-all presentation either. Put on Green Day's American Idiot [Reprise 48777-1] and the band's right there in front of you, up close and personal. Try something classical like Telarc's Aaron Copland: The Music of America [Telarc CD-80339] and the front wall melts away to allow the view of the orchestra placed deeply beyond the speakers.


All right then, so the Ref3.1s are what I consider SOTA when placed in modestly sized rooms. Does that mean that they are only recommended for such rooms? Certainly not. I'm simply saying that if you have a modest room, these speakers may be your dream come true. They reportedly sounded excellent in the large room that Anthony Gallo used to demonstrate them at CES 2006. They may not energize such a room quite so effortlessly as they do in my smaller space but they certainly won't turn anemic. Place them in a larger room, give them some added breathing room and they produce a rendition that is even more natural, spacious and engulfing.
So, what can't the Gallo Ref 3.1s do? In my modest room, there's really nothing of import that they can't or won't do. There's absolutely nothing about their sonic performance that I would wish changed. Does that mean no room for improvement? Well, I'm sure there's always room for that. But nothing at all stands out as being the least bit sub-par. I guess I could wish for a little higher sensitivity. It would be nice to use them with my 16-watt Art Audio Carissa SET. As it stands, that ain't gonna happen. They do sound spectacular with the fairly costly Canary Audio CA 160 amplifiers and Anthony Gallo himself tells me that he finds them to mate particularly well with EL34s. I'd be very interested in hearing these Gallos with the
superb yet reasonably priced Conrad-Johnson MV60 or Canary's own 100-watt CA 100. I'm sure there is any number of fine amplifiers out there just waiting to doing the mambo with the Ref3.1s. I've also had substantially less expensive gear on them, including the Underwood HiFi's modified Mambo integrated. As Srajan noted in his review of the Gallo AVs, the better of a diet you feed the Ref 3.1s, the better they'll perform. Yet these speakers are so smooth and musical, they can be considered upgrading to even if you have lesser electronics. While you won't get the very best from them, you'll certainly get a speaker that you can upgrade the rest of your system around as funds permit.
What else won't they do? If you have a very large room, they may not fill it with the same degree of gravitas that some of the really large speakers will. But then you didn't really expect them to, did you? This could perhaps be what certain folks who complain about image height really refer to. With a small speaker, there's only so much air it can move, only so much sonic density it can erect. They Ref 3.1s will exceed the output of any like-priced monitor I can think of - and they'll save you the price of a pair of good stands. But now I'm being ridiculous. Nobody would expect these speakers to compete with others at 3 to 5 times their price. Conversely, I'd like to see those large speakers perform in my room.


So much for comparisons to monitors. How about floorstanding speakers in the Gallos' price class? As I look back over the speakers I've reviewed or experienced at shows or dealers, I can't come up with a single speaker at the Gallo's price that can compete. In December of 1999, Marc Mickelson reviewed the original Silverline Sonatina. It retailed for $3,800 and garnered a Soundstage! Reviewers Choice award. A year later, I reviewed its MkII iteration which was then selling for $4,000 to still deserve the Reviewers Choice. Today the MkIII version sells for $5,000. It's one speaker I think of as being fairly close to the Gallo. But even the smooth and silky Silverlines don't have the same degree of transparency and microdynamic finesse as the Gallos. Neither do they dig as deep or powerfully in the bass.


The Thiel CS 2.4 is both more expensive than the Gallos and its superb cabinetry offers an alternative aesthetic that some will prefer. When it comes to sound, both speakers share a lot in common. The Thiels are a touch more detailed and the Gallos' equal in terms of imaging, though the Thiels probably do cast a slightly sharper image. But the Gallos are warmer, sweeter and go deeper with more authority.


There's a good number of highly acclaimed Canadian speakers spawned from the alter of the NRC that sell at fair prices and get rave reviews based on all the audiophile tricks they perform. What I don't see is that these speakers turn personal favorites of the reviewers that fawn over them. In other words, not many reviewers use them as their personal reference speaker. Why? Because they do a superb job of painting by the numbers but they just don't achieve the same degree of natural musicality of the Gallos that transcends initial infatuation over technicalia.


In conclusion, I'll start by saying that not only do I now understand why Srajan felt the need to create an entirely new award category for the Gallo Ref 3, I wholeheartedly concur with his assessment. As for the S.A. bass amplifier? I have mixed feelings about a blanket recommendation. You see, a recommendation could imply that the Ref 3.1 requires it for satisfying bass. That would not only be misleading, it would be doing the speakers a great disservice. I cannot overemphasize the fact that I view the S.A as an option, not a necessity by any stretch. I actually almost prefer the simplicity of not using the amp. The speakers sound great without it and on much of the music I listen to, the S.A. amp adds little if anything of note in my size room and with my amps. On the other hand, if you like music that contains deep and sustained bass, the S.A. offers a cost-effective and extremely convenient upgrade path that can be considered well past the initial speaker purchase. That's a really cool feature.


I've been living with this pair of speakers for a bit over 4 months now. While my initial infatuation has certainly waned, my opinion of them remains steadfast. I find them utterly engaging on every style of music I throw at them. If you have a budget twice their asking price; if you thought you only had room for a monitor speaker; if you want a speaker that won't visually dominate the room... you must hear the Gallos before you spend a penny. If you value rhythm and speed, accuracy, transparency and musicality; if you want a speaker that's remarkably unfussy about setup and can be driven with a wide variety of amplifiers... you need to hear the Gallos. Right now, they may be the greatest bargain in high-performance audio. They are a glorious tribute to the years of sweat equity that pooled into their design as well as the groundbreaking -- while cosmetically challenged -- Gallo speakers that preceded them. Without question, the Reference 3.1 continues in the tradition of the original Reference 3, by setting the standard in affordable speakers. As such, it continues to be worthy of 6moons' most prestigious award. Not only is the Reference 3.1 an extraordinary achievement in the affordable loudspeaker category, it's one helluva speaker, period. It's also mine. I bought the pair as one of my reference speakers that have already made a few appearances as co-conspirators in reviews prior to today's feature and will continue to appear in future electronics reviews.
Gallo website