At the other end of the audio band, the extreme highs sounded clean, but the speaker overall lacked "air." Billy Drummond's Zildjian ride cymbals on Stereophile's Rendezvous CD (STPH013-2), for example, had a little too much of a sssh tonality rather than the correct sss. This would be more of a problem in rooms larger than my 19.5' by 15' one, less so in smaller spaces, as it appears from the measurements to be associated with a lack of top-octave dispersion rather than a depressed on-axis response in the same region.
But the subdued extreme highs did leave the mid-treble a bit more exposed than I would have liked. There was an occasional hardness to high-level treble instruments that had me reaching for the volume control. When Cyrus Chestnut hammers away at the top of the piano keyboard on Earth Stories (Atlantic 82876-2), for example, some treble notes jumped aggressively forward of the piano image.
It was in the midrange that the Aegis One excelled. Yes, I could sometimes hear a hint of nasality, but that alloy-cone drive-unit seemed to be very good at staying out of the way of the music. Other than at the top of the keyboard, Cyrus Chestnut's piano was presented with a natural tonal quality. Voices, too, were reproduced with good pitch distinction, although I did note an occasional lack of clarity, a touch of hootiness, at the bottom of the midrange. I noticed a slight overhang to Sara K.'s distinctive contralto, when she drops down to the bottom of her range on "If I Could Sing Your Blues" (from No Cover, Chesky CHDVD195, 24/96 sound and full-motion video). But when the recording was itself a little fizzed-up in the extreme highs, such as James Taylor's Live at the Beacon Theater DVD (Columbia Music Video CVD 50171), the Aegis One's overall presentation sounded very natural.