I am now in between 633-T and 533-PT . THis is strictly for 2-channel music only. 533-PT is lighter than 633-T and looks neat, but extra outlets for power amp needed whil 633-T is what i like but it's very heavy. decision, decision....

Hi Michael, and everyone else on this forum:

This is my first time posting here since I really wanted to give my own opinion on the 633-T.

After reading rave reviews on the 522-PT, I decided to go with the 633-T and ordered them a month ago. I recieved the two towers today and played them for only 7 hours (this means that I doubt they're fully broken in). The two reference speakers that I have would be the Infinity Reference 5 (about 11 years old) and the Polk Audio R50 (less than a year old). I will not mention the Polks again as they were seriously outclassed by both speakers . The Aperions were using Kimber Kables that I got with the free accessories deal when I ordered whereas the other two were using lower quality wire that I had before.

Appearance:

Very impressive packaging and presentation of the product. The royal blue velvet covers and gold colored drawstring made it seem as if I had spent thousands of dollars on speakers. The care package added on to the "wow" factor. (the relatives over at my house happened to watch me unpack the speakers and were blown away at the fact that gloves were provided ) The cabinet wood was beautiful and smooth and the drivers were equally as impressive. They looked different compared to the online pictures as they had a shiny coating over the little lines of the composite material. It looked like stamped paper cones online.

The depth of the cabinetry is only the downside. Otherwise, the slim look that the speakers offer give an impression that they don't take up a lot of space. If owners, like me, with a CRT television place the speakers next to it, the speakers fit very well. I didnt have trouble with placement at all. (NOTE: I didnt try to put the floor spikes yet. I was too excited to just listen to them)

Looking at the cabinetry, I noticed that several corners were not finished smoothly, as the joints were unfilled and conseqeuently gave a ragged edge near the rear of the speaker. This is very minor however, as it only extended about 1-1.5 cm in length and at the rear of the speaker. The port hole is a whole other story. The circle that is colored black that represents the hole is not completely round as some areas of the circle were jagged. There was nothing wrong with the cabinetry, just the black paint wasn't applied completely circular. As I looked into the port, I saw white padding that seemed to cover about 20% of the port itself. I doubt anyone but me would look into the port so its very minor as well. The port itself wasn't finished that well since the surface was fairly rough (not as smooth as the outside part of the port).

Sound:

(Remember that the speakers are not completely broken in yet so it is merely a first impression)

The music that I played varied from Kylie Minogue to Good Charlotte, from Diana Krall and Norah Jones, to Britney Spears as well . Beginning from bottom up, the depth of the bass of the aperions were close but could not reach the depth that my Infinities could reach. The infinities had a 8 inch woofer. The specs for aperions was in the upper 30's whereas the infinities were in the lower 30's. Tightness of the lower bass were about equal. As for the midbass, the aperions seemed to have more control as the infinities sounded boomy in comparison.

The midrange is where the Aperions shined. Celene Dion's voice sounded rich and full in comparison to the infinities. The infinities only had a 4 inch midrange driver compared to the aperion's 6, so that may play a part as well.

Unfortunately, the main fault that I found with the Aperions were with the tweeter. (btw, I found a very "similar" looking tweeter made by Vifa online , but no luck with aperion's woofer.) Infinity uses a ribbon style of driver I believe, a very different technology than the Aperions. Compared to the Infinity's EMIT-R tweeters, the aperions sounded raspy and bright. As a result, the 's' sounds made by singers or any other sound produced by the tweeter sounded unrefined and stuck out like a sore thumb in the otherwise great sounding speaker. The Infinitys had a very good cohesion and blending with the midrange driver and produced a very natural sounding high frequency. One benefit that I found with the Aperion's tweeter is that extemely bright recordings with high sibilance in the singer's voice is toned down. Its not that the tweeter is bad (if you want bad, listen to the polk r50s), as the good qualties include being detailed and not harsh at all.   

Imaging is PHENOMENAL. I could not get my previous speakers to image properly and the Aperions really showed me what people mean by the singer standing right in the middle with various instruments to his/her side. I had to double check that the dolby prologic wasnt on and that the center wasnt on. The person's voice was placed right on the center speaker (i swear it wasnt on!)

Conclusion:

At this point, I feel that it is fairly hard to criticize the speaker as I am nitpicking on every single thing I see (notice its not "hear"). There is a weakness in the tweeter in my opinion at this time but hopefully the smoothness appear later on as I break them in. If so, I really think that the Aperions are worth double the price I payed for the infinities 10 years ago.

Like many people unfortunately, I had to choose between the 533-PT and the 633-T. I chose the 633-T as I would be listening to 2 channel music more than home theater and that sometimes I like to use a tube amplifier to drive them.  I don't regret not getting the 533-PT as I have a subwoofer to fill in the ultra low frequencies. Overall, my first impressions of the Aperion 633-T are very good and I hope that my experience with them would improve. I will keep everyone posted on how the speaker breaks in and my thoughts on it along the way. (BTW, sorry about this long post filled with gramatical errors. I just got carried away and just kept typing )

D T, great post!  I'll be looking forward to your future posting on the 633's as they break in a little.

BTW, how did they sound with tubes?  What tube amp are you driving them with?

Hi Jim,

I haven't gotten to take a closer look at them with the tube amp, as I was playing them through my yamaha reciever most of the time yesterday. The tube that I'm using is sourced from China, from a company called Yarland Audio. Its rated at 30w per channel I believe.

From past experiences with the tube amp with my Infinity's, the tubes sounded more warm overall and less harsh on the upper end than the yamaha. It is much more revealing than the Yamaha reciever. I could tell since playing various XRCDs on the tubes sounds beautiful whereas the 128kbps bit rate mp3s sounds undynamic and harsh. Its harder to tell when playing them on the yamaha reciever. When I did try them on the aperions, they didn't have any trouble driving them at all.

The sound of the tube amp is comparable with another yamaha solid state amp (with no preamp at all, just the amp and the cd player). I just need to get a preamp in order to use this one in the future.

D T, thanks for detail review. please keep us posted with the review after speaker break-in. Based on your review, i can imagine how bulky 633-T is

Hi michael v,

Actually, the speakers weren't bulky in my opinion. Only the depth of the speakers surprised me. Compared to my CRT television, its practically nothing. The slim width of the speakers make them look very sleek and small since sitting in front of it hides its depth.

When I was deciding between the two speakers, I looked at what I was going to use them for. The 633-T more for music and 533-PT more for home theater (this is only my opinion btw). I'm very sure that they would excel at both situations anyways. Another factor would be the room that you have to spare. If you have a tight space, get the 533-PT. It would be better if you had some leeway in placement of your speakers and not have to be forced to put them where u can fit them.

I chose the 633-T becuase I had a subwoofer already, listened mainly to music (mostly 2 channel), had a tube amplifer (so i need the higher efficency of the 633-T), and lacked a rear wall for one of the speakers (so front port of the 633-T would be better for my application). I hope you choose something that you would enjoy and you can't go wrong either way.

D T, my room is pretty small (12'x14') , so front port is better for too as i can move speaker close to the back wall, probably 1 ft. I see your comments on the tweeter . I have been listening several other brands of speaker and the only one i think the tweeter is good to my ear is Totem Forrest, but it costs triple price of 633-T. Do you have acoustic treatment in your room?

Hi michael v,

At this time, the room is very lively, with a smooth ceiling, hardwood flooring and no curtains at all. The only thing that is taming it would be the various sofas and an area rug right in front of the speakers. So basically, no, I didnt add anything to it. Its fairly difficult to add acoustical treatments other than curtains as the room is used very often and i dont think that they would look appropriate.

Hi everyone,

just a short update: I installed the floor spikes and the bass got tighter, allowing more details to be heared in the mids and highs. They were a pain to install though, as I was afraid of scratching and putting holes into the wood floors. After an hour or so, I got them in and surprisingly, didn't require leveling at all. If there is a way to integrate the spikes with the disks into one unit, I think that people would be more willing to add the spikes to the speakers to get the most out of them.

Tips: well, what I did is tilt the speaker sideways (easier than forwards or backwards), add the spikes and disks, and then do the other side. Then afterwards, I double checked and made sure that the spikes are properly seated on the disks. The way that you could tell is when the speakers aren't level, one or more of the spikes are still not in place properly.

I hope this helps! Happy listening!

EDIT: Another thing is that I notice that the cabinet is vibrating when playing music more than my Infinity's. However, I don't notice any colorations in the music. Has anyone else experienced this? Even with the 522-PT?

 

I believe they are all made out of 1" HDF, but I must say that the subwoofer chamber in the 533-PT seems to be thinner than the Mid-Hi enclosure.  I don't really notice much vibration, other than the beer bottles on the counter....

 

 

Thanks for your input Matt.

I can feel the vibrations when I put my hands on the sides of the speaker (the left and right side of the speaker, or for the 633-T, the widest sides). When it is only the front and the back, no vibrations at all. The vibrations may be exaggerated due to the width of the cabinet sides compared to the smaller 533/522-pt's.

Hi DT. The sides will have slight more vibrations due to the wide panel (the speaker is pretty deep, as you've noted) . Luckily the 1" HDF really helps minimize any coloration.

A couple thoughts/ comments on the tweeter,

Break in should help quite a bit. RIght out of the box, the tweeter is going to naturally be a bit on the hot side. It needs to play (50 - 100 hours) to warm up and sound more natural.

We designed the tweeter to be just a little on the brighter side, considering that most rooms would have a fair amount of acoustical dampening from drapes and carpet. Without those, the speakers may be on the bright side, to some.

WIth the grille off, the tweeter will be about 1dB hotter than with the grille on. So if you prefer it to be darker sounding, leave the grille on.

The receiver and cabling can make a big difference here as well. Yamaha receivers are known to be great for home theater, but a tad on the bright side for music. It's all subjective...some may prefer the brighter detail of the yamaha to something slightly more neutral, such as a Denon, Harman Kardon, Rotel, or Marantz.

If you want my recommendation on cables, I would consider either the cobalt ultimate speaker wire, or standard 12 gauge generic cable. They both tend to have a warmer more neutral sound. A lot of audiophile cables can sound on the brighter side, at least to my ear.

Cheers,

and happy listening!

Ben

Ben,

Would cables really make that much of a difference?  I thought the new HD-X3 crossover minimized the impact of cable differences - that is one of the main selling points in the marketing literature regarding this new crossover (?)

By the way D T, I forgot to mention....Great Review!

With HD-X3, speaker cables won't have a negative impact on the performance of the speaker, i.e. distort the speaker's frequency response. But this becomes more true for long runs of wire (say longer than 20 ft). The longer the run of wire, the more resistance imposed on the speaker. That affects (distorts) the speaker's frequency response. That's where HD-X3 really comes in. But for shorter runs, HDX3 has less of an impact. So in a two channel stereo setup with short runs of wire, a critical ear may hear some nuanced differences between cables, that have nothing to do with the resistance.

Our test lab and soundroom are wired with generic 12 gauge wire, and Cobalt's ultimate speaker wire. I've A/B'd Monster cable and Kimber Kable, and those both were slightly brighter. It's extremely subtle, and I would have to ultimately say that the speaker wire makes very little difference in the end. But I think D T would notice a sllight difference if he tried generic 12 gauge cable vs the Kimber.

Hopes that makes sense. I've been digging up dirt and gravel all morning for a new patio I'm putting in. And my back aches man. Time for a rest..

 

Thanks for the input Ben! You, and many people on this forum, have been very helpful.

I guess that I'll try the generic cables that I had before installed on my infinitys. Not sure what gauge they were but they were pretty thick.

Anyways, I had someone bring over a pair of Eltax Liberty 7+ (seems like a famous Danish brand with many great reviews from the research I've done online). To sum it up, the aperions blew them away, both in the build quality and sound quality. Other people complemented on how the aperions sounded (disagreeing with me on the tweeter, saying that it sounds better than what they have ever heard), so i guess its all subjective. They went as far as saying that they were the standard to what they will judge other speakers with (while taking note of aperions website at the same time).

(for the backache ben: 1. take tylenol. 2. turn on speakers 3. keep digging (just kidding , I hope everything goes well!  )

Happy listening everyone!