We were approached only a couple of days before this event because another manufacturer had pulled out. I was intrigued by the experiment they proposed, recording the played back music in the room and having people listen in through the live stream on youtube. I was confident the 8c's would do well in this test and I happily provided them with a pair. I set up the 8c's myself and thought they sounded good in the room.
That Sunday I watched the live stream and I thought it was quite enjoyable, but I did feel the 8c was not presented in the best possible light. It seemed to me they were sticking to a preconceived narrative, starting with the least expensive speaker and then moving up in price, and up in sound quality. The Grimms are long-time Alpha Audio favorites and in this test they came out as clearly the best of the bunch. I've listened to the Grimms on multiple occasions and they are indeed fantastic speakers. Actually, they served as one of the many sources of inspiration when we designed the 8c. However, had they during the test switched back and forth between speakers more frequently, had the levels been properly matched, and had they listened blind, would the listeners still have used the same superlatives?
Before the event, Alpha Audio admitted this was an experiment and they have been very open to ideas of how to improve the concept. They're now experimenting with different microphone configurations and they agreed that next time they will make sure the levels are properly matched (the 8c's played approximately 4 dB less loud than the rest - this was fixed in post-production of the audio samples in their database). They were kind of enough to mention this in a disclaimer in the video description, but this was done only a couple of weeks after the live stream, so I think few people have seen it.
So, if you wish to do a proper comparison of the recordings, download the samples from the database, rather than comparing them on Youtube.
I listened to all three speakers in the room briefly. Of course, making a recording and playing that back over headphones can only give a very crude approximation of the real thing, but I have to say I was surprised by how well the tonal character holds. At the very least you can hear the differences in timbre between speakers. This approach lets prospective buyers get a basic idea of the character of different speakers. It's imperfect, but I think it's very useful nonetheless. I hope Alpha Audio keeps improving their method of recording and of presenting the recordings to their listeners. Perhaps an ABX comparator would be an interesting addition to their sample database?
As most people here know, listening tests are difficult to do well. Inspired by the stream, one of our dealers (Pura Audio) wrote a blog about listening tests:
https://pura-audio.nl/en/2020/11/09...er-tests-how-do-you-get-the-most-out-of-them/
Actually, I do! The tweeter and mid are OEM versions of Seas Prestige, the woofers are OEM Wavecor.