For this review we utilized the complete Aperion Audio Intimus 6T-DB Hybrid HD 5.1 system. This includes the two 6T towers, 6C center, two 5DB surrounds and Bravus 12D subwoofer. There are three principle issues when positioning a 5.1 system: Placing the mains for best imaging and frequency response, positioning the surrounds optimally for the room, and locating the subwoofer in the best possible location to minimize room modes. What surprised us the most was that the Intimus 6T-DB Hybrid HD system was incredibly easy to set up. So much so that I spent more time convincing myself that no better placement was possible, then I did actually placing the speakers in their initial positions.

The room we were in had 10 foot ceilings and was about 18 feet deep and opened up into a dining and kitchen area, making it essentially 45-50 feet wide. This is a medium-sized room in THX language, but a big room in terms of the average home theater. I positioned the 6T tower speakers wide enough apart (about 55 degrees) to give us a nice soundstage. Toe-in was minimal and the speakers performed best in that configuration compared to completely straight or fully toed-in to the listening position. Once we were configured we calibrated levels, set the proper distance delay, popped in some music and let the system fly at near-reference levels.

DTS: Eagles - Hell Freezes Over
We started with my favorite track "New York Minute". Don Henley's voice held that gritty natural sound that characterizes this song. It carried all of the texture I expected, but didn't crisp over during intense passages when Henley pushed his verses to the top of his range. The song stayed true to life and the effect was of having Don deliver an intimate performance for myself and a friend who were enjoying the experience. The sax solo came through with a slightly brittle top end, but I could easily attribute most of this to the room acoustics which were best described as reflective (drapeless and with drywall on three sides). Our ears eventually broke in and compensated for the room - a physiological miracle of human design that, thankfully, results in the ability to evaluate speakers in almost any room or environment with positive and fairly consistent results. The Bravus 12D subwoofer had a decisive thump that just seemed to blend perfectly into the song. Walking around the room I could hear the ebb and flow of the bass due to the standing waves and room acoustics, but I would swear that the Aperion system had much less problems than many other speakers we've tested to-date. "Every seat a good seat" is THX' motto, and the Aperion system, and especially the Bravus 12D subwoofer seemed to help that along quite nicely. We couldn't find a truly bad seat anywhere within reasonable listening distance of the mains.

"Seven Bridges Road" blended perfectly in the room, with the vocals form the falsetto-belting Timothy B. Schmidt combining beautifully with Joe Walsh in the surrounds. Those vocals then melted into Henley (coming from the Aperion 6C center channel), and Don Felder and Glen Frey across the front mains. The effect was intoxicatingly perfect and while you could pick out each artist, the combined ingredients would make Chef Ramsey smile with pleasure.

DVD-Audio: Toy Matinee
The first track, "Last Plane Out" had well-anchored vocals and the thunderous sub really hit you in the chest (while this sounds violent, it was totally awesome at high playback volumes). The central guitar break was absolutely like sitting in the control room during the session and you really got the sense that every bit of detail this recording had to offer was being faithfully reproduced by the Aperion 6T towers. In this song in particular, the soundstage was shown to be much wider than the room and the imaging of these speakers was above-par, with instruments able to be easily picked out with precision.

"Things She Said" is a song I like to listen to when I'm evaluating the smoothness of a subwoofer. There is a sequence of drawn out bass drops that occurs in the intro and first verse and the Bravus 12D/6T combination rendered it smoothly, with its gradual dips and valleys. With other systems, I've heard this intro drop into oblivion, but with the Aperion 6T-DB Hybrid XD system the bass stayed on track and every note swept through.

"There Was a Little Boy" opens with a piano, after which the guitar and percussion tracks dive into the surrounds. In Bipole mode we actually found that much of the side-mounted surround information was being directed to our ears from the rear wall, due to reflection. This had a very pleasing and immersive effect that we felt was really enjoyable and added to the track's appeal. The piano had a lot of midrange detail and the 6T's seemed to bring out a three-dimensional reverb that filled the room and gave serious depth to the soundstage.

CD: Seal (1991)
I only use this CD for one thing and that is to test track 3 at 5:15. "Crazy" has some crazy subsonic bass frequencies after 5 minutes into the track that most systems simply won't reproduce. The first time I heard the track was in a car audio system after a subwoofer had just been installed. I had been listening to that CD for several years and had never known that there was so much bass information near the end of the song. Since that day Seal has followed me everywhere I want to listen to low frequency performance. The Bravus 12D subwoofer pumped out the bass hits efficiently and with much control. I heard no breakup and the pounding my chest took told me that this sealed design was still putting out enough output to cause much tactile response - even in this rather large listening space. It only took a few passes before I was convinced that this subwoofer might need a follow-up review all of its own. After the $1099 Bravus 12D, I really wanted to know if it might not be a sleeping giant to take down some of the Internet brands that we hear so many people talking about. I certainly would like to see a shootout and might have to arrange something like this down the road.

DVD-Audio: Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
Porcupine Tree In Absentia is a bright album that has a lot of high energy tracks. The reason we like to test with it is to see if we can tax a tweeter and generate output that would be deemed fatiguing to the ears over time. If you have a speaker with a cheap tweeter, this album will cause you pain - and fast. In "Blackest Eyes" liquidy vocals poured forth from the mains while vibrato guitar issued from the surrounds. When the chorused vocals kicked in and filled the back of the room I knew that this system had good balance and could be listened to for hours on end. Bass guitar was clean and rolled out with a clean medium-toned performance from the front. I really liked the control this song displayed and the Aperion's allowed themselves to be led along, starting and stopping with the music while not blurring the sound or becoming muddy.

"Trains" has a super clean vocal that was slightly left of center (on purpose) and the gentle falsetto drop of the chorus filled the room with reverb-laden lead vocals that quickly had us misplacing 3 minutes of our lives before we even realized what had happened. These speakers are sweet to listen to. ".3" leads off with a bass accompanied only by a windy pad. The effect is an authentic bass lick that repeats over and over. What's nice was its revealing fingering and nice extension. Again, the transition from the mains to the sub was almost seamless, making this one of the most well-integrated systems we'd heard in some time.

Conclusion

After listening to so much music, we barely had time for an official evaluation of movies, but we had watched several and found the results to be more than a little satisfying. Explosions, like those in U-571 and Heat, were off the hook and dialogue was always crystal clear from the Intimus 6C center channel - something that made intelligibility a serious strength of this system. In a nutshell, movies were a blast (quite literally sometimes). The bottom line is that the Aperion Audio Intimus 6T-DB Hybrid XD system is one of those systems you'll get hooked on quickly. There's simply no way to miss how well they mesh together into a cohesive system and how well they handle lots of output without compressing the top end or losing control over the bottom frequencies. I wonder how well the system would do with two subs - I suspect that would be an upgrade many users might want to consider for even better bass integration.

About the only concern with these speakers is that 'they give what they get'. If you feed them compressed, high-energy music or poorly-recorded material you're going to be assaulted back with fatiguing results. If you send them high resolution audio, you'll be in for hours of pleasing listening enjoyment. This is a well-rounded system that is sure to please for both music and movies. At just over $3700 for a complete 5.1 system that doesn't really skimp on anything, this is not only a good-sounding system - it's a bargain.

Aperion Audio
MSRP: $3,769 shipped
http://www.aperionaudio.com

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