OK guys, guys, make sure to state which speakers you upgrade from, and to, and how do you "Feel" it
I apologize.
I recently changed from Cabasse Iroise SCS to Cabasse Catalane 500.
I own Cabasse Iroise SCS from almost 20 years. I always was impressed by the ability of this loudspeaker to reproduced natural sound characteristics, especially transients, compared to other brands of loudspeakers I have listened to. That produces a very live-like experience when listening good recordings of natural music, mostly classical. I was not alone, as visitors feel the same thing. Nevertheless, on the long run, I have built some dissatisfaction with the spatial reproduction and overall balance from time to time. I generally attributed this short-comings to the room acoustic, my successive listening rooms being far from perfect.
Meanwhile, I have learned by former Cabasse key employees with whom I begin to be in touch that in the great turmoil following the retirement of Georges Cabasse (the founder of the enterprise) in the 90s, there actually was a split in the engineering team between those faithful to the commitments of the founder and those who adhered to new engineering guidelines. The two teams actually engineered at the same time different families of loudspeakers, even with the same drivers. I learned that the Iroise SCS was a product of the new school of thoughts, whereas the Catalane 500 was a product of the old school. Curiously, the two loudspeakers were from the same time frame and coexisted in the Cabasse catalogue, but in two different ranges.
So, following an advise of one of this Cabasse's ex-employee, I decided to give a try to the Catalane 500.
To my surprised, the two loudspeakers produce remarkably similar overall sound. The first minutes I listened to well known materials through the Catalane, I thought there were the same as the Iroise. But, further listening obviously showed me that the shortcomings I had previously identified with the Iroise almost disappears with the Catalane, which, furthermore, does very much produce a more articulated and full-bodied mid-range.
Today, the way I analyze things is the following - with the Iroise SCS, there are discrepancies between the direct sound and the resulting in-room ambient sound which alter the stereophonic effect. There are also localized accidents in the frequency response which systematically produce harhness or boominess with certain materials, especially those having great dynamic range.
Anecdotally, I remember the speach of a Cabasse representative at some hifi show in the 2000s, who explained to me that the first generation of the two-ways coaxial drivers embarked both in the Iroise and Catalane actually shows problematic resonances in some listening rooms, a problem that was discovered and addressed from the second generation of this driver. But I wonder if this problem, if true, was not intrinsically in the driver, but instead in the way it was implemented.