"The
Abby/Bailey
combo gives you
a very serious taste
of the single-driver phenomenon in a decorator-friendly, wallet-happy,
placement-flexible package. By general comparison, network-filtered speakers
sound - well, filtered."
:
"With his
Bailey,
Terry Cain wisely didn't opt for superlative SPLs or record-setting
infrasonics but speed and precision. The 10" Seas metal-cone driver with the
stout phase plug will likely telegraph limitations when asked to participate
in the usual search-to-destroy spectacles of he-man subwoofer shootouts (the
ones that consider THX-style levels a starting point rather than bleeding-ear
insanity).
But who cares. When it comes to music, the Bailey is cream.
It performs just as intended."
:
"You
can get more refinement and higher SPLs but you won't really get any more
musical essence. That's why I'm bestowing our Blue Moon Award on this
combo. It's something Listener magazine would have loved and Harvey
Rosenberg would have endorsed. In what it does right, it embarrasses many
far more hifalutin speakers and dishes out dynamics that usually would require
horns. Where it errs, it does so in a manner that will primarily get minor
marks in audiophile black books. Most music lovers will be completely
oblivious to them since they don't intrude on their grooving in the zone."
"...
my wife looked over my shoulder and exclaimed “What are those speakers? They’re
beautiful. Buy them.”
My wife has put up with every imaginable piece of electronic gear
you can think of over the years (including lime green speakers that were 6 feet
high and 20 feet long), not to mention all the boxes which they come in. She has
never said anything like that to me. Ever! If these speakers had a WAF (wife
acceptance factor) of one million, I had to hear them."
"In my living room the Abbys sounded amazingly great using some
ancient equipment (Dynaco ST-35, Sugden A21) and truly unbelievable with my old
Quad 33/303s. This last combination has to be experienced to understand my
enthusiasm. It was scary good with newer stuff too: ..."
"... For instance, listening to the last Ray Charles album
"Genius Loves Company" on SACD, via Sony’s top-of-the-line XA9000ES plus the
Quad gear, created goose bumps for everyone in the room."
"I’m tall, slim and sensitive and I have roundness
in the right places. My outlook and my sound awaken contradictory feelings. Don’t be scared
... if You meet my demands, I’ll enchant You, and You won't want to get rid of me
anymore. I can promise that in right company I’m an irresistible piece of delicacy.
I’m searching for a partner, who has warmth and natural ardor. You are present, easy to listen, steady, and you know what you want, as me too. If you
fit this bill, don’t hesitate to make contact: Come and make acquaintance, see, listen, maybe fall in love…
P.S. Heavy rockers and one-night guys, stay away!"
"This speaker and amp
combination reveals everything in a recording, so the temptation is very real to
keep yanking old favorites off the shelf for an updated audition, resulting in
lost nights and even lost weekends. You get hooked after a while and become
relentless in the quest to hear nuances in you CD collection other systems might
miss."
"At 70 inches tall, with a 9-inch by 9-inch footprint, the
Abby from Cain and Cain Company is a set of speakers that warrants cracking
open your wallet. In an era when most speaker cabinets are mass-produced, the
handmade finish on the all-wood Abby is startling in its beauty. Even more
stunning is the quality of the music this single-driver speaker can feed your
room: Vocals sound breathy and natural; brass has bite; woodwind instruments
present a sense of the reed, so much so that the hair on your arms will stand
up as soon as the music escapes. As well, a pair of Abby speakers present a
near-lifelike soundstage between them, holographic images situated from left to
right and front to back of the room. The Abby is nothing less than a piece of
art designed for presenting the art of music (and you can custom-order it in
any number of modern colors)."
"Terry Cain has done an impressive job with the sonics...
these speakers are great for jazz lovers... and the woodwork, as expected, is
second to none."
"The Abbys
reproduced Buddy Guy and Junior Wells' 1991 release, Alone and Acoustic,
sharply and cleanly. Through my tube amps, the Abbys also reproduced Guy's
acoustic guitar with plenty of body and wood. I heard each note
clearly, and dynamic changes were easy to follow. It was interesting to hear
Guy turn his head or start to sing before he was positioned in front of the
microphone. The Abbys easily revealed these spatial cues, yet they never
sounded bright. They gave me the feeling that the recording session was
a pretty laid back affair, with these two long-time buddies relaxing and
making music they know well."
"How did "Good
Times, Bad Times" sound on the Abbys? Not bad. Those Fostex drivers were
flexing to accommodate Bonham's drumming and the top end of Page's Les Paul
Sunburst. These clean, detailed speakers revealed a balanced and extended
top end, with no obvious rolloff or lack of air. The lead part in
"Communication Breakdown" was no problem. Vocals sounded articulate and
intelligible. On "Purple Haze," I could tell easily that Jimi was saying, "'Scuse
me while I kiss THE SKY," not "kiss this guy!" And when Bon Scott sang about
being on the highway to hell, I believed him!"
"While
designed primarily to satisfy the cravings of the single-ended crowd, the
general consensus is that they sound equally as good, if not better with
push-pull designs and solid-state gear on the warm side of the force."
"The Robb Report
features cover an extensive range of topics - from collectible automobiles
to handmade jewelry and custom private-jet getaways, focusing on items and
experiences that our readers are unlikely to encounter in any other
magazine.
Robb Report is a trusted guide for the world's most
successful, demanding, and educated magazine readers."
Dec 2002
Cain & Cain twin-horn Ben loudspeaker
Musical Oxygen
by
Stephæn
"Enter
the Cain & Cain Studio Series Double Horn BEN (Big ENough), a
blend of the best attributes of three previous system residents: The tonal
purity, ambience retrieval and image height/density of the Maggies; the
articulation, image specificity and speed of the Dunlavys; and the pace &
space of the Cabasses. Add more still. But first..."
...
"You know what I want? Everything.
I need my music to live and breathe. I want to experience waves of sound
gushing forth from instruments stroked, caressed and coaxed by the hands,
lips (and possibly feet - kink alert!) of living, breathing and emotionally
complex human beings.
With the Cain & Cain twin-horn BENs, I'm now knee-deep in this loop of
ongoing musical conversations, with all manner of folks who'd otherwise
never come to my neck of the woods. And rather than dealing in cryptograms –
or the proverbial bi-location of myself to a recording venue or the
likeness of bodies somehow teleported into my living room -- it's
becoming more and more about message & meaning."
"This
room had some seriously great music. Gorgeous sound, very musical, very
engrossing. Beautiful handcrafted components. I can't say enough about them.
"
"Terry Cain's
Cain & Cain ground-level space turned into VSAC central, with
listening sessions late into the night and various tube amps on tap which were
switched in and out on the fly. This is where Fostex/SET aficionado and
Audio Asylum/TAS/6moons contributor Stephaen and large groups of like-minded
folks hung out around the clock. Front-end duties were handled by Terry's VRS computer
server which also appeared in three other exhibits, nearly always mated with
tubes to herald a different kind of convergence. A proper turntable was
present as well."
"The first room we visited was the Cain & Cain /
Electronluv suite. As always, Terry Cain and Josh Stippich (winner of PFO's
2003 Gizmo Award) had a knock-out beautiful system, with plenty of audio
enthusiasts (particularly of the SET/high efficiency clan) in attendance."
"The Cain and
Cain room featured the usual killer amps from Josh Stippich. Pictured are the
Electronluv 45 monos with quad power supplies. Incredible looks and sound!"
:
:
"Terry's Bailey sub filled in the lower frequencies
and came across as being seamless as a face-lift from a Miami plastic surgeon."
"Cain
& Cain's improved Abby (CAN $2300) and Bailey subwoofer (CAN
$2300) below were drop-dead gorgeous in their 50s "Telecaster tobacco juice
sunburst" livery and wired up to Cayin tube components. Together, they
delivered an immediate and involving presentation. The Abby and Bailey
were definitely a loudspeaker team that I'd love to get close up & personal
with."
Click Me! to view a photo of the Abby +
Bailey subwoofer at the show.
"As Saturday is
the last day of my coverage, I want to comment on which room I really think
stood out and my opinion on the direction of the industry. Picking the
"best" product of the show is a no-brainer for me. I heard nothing that
touched the Cain and Cain Studio Ben ES double-horns ($12,500) and I hope
that more people get to hear this superb example of sublime simplicity.
I know it seems odd that I would recommend the Studio Ben ES over the
Avant-Garde Trio 3.0s, which are capable of brilliance, and have legions of
fans, but the maple horns from Walla-Walla were better this weekend. The
Studio Ben ES need state-of-the-art amplification in order to shine and
combined with the Art Audio PX-25 monoblocks and Carissa 845-based stereo
amplifier, were hair-raising, heart-pounding good."
[c]Hipster[n] has
the last words on the Best Sounding Rooms
"Another
stunning chapter in the realm of the mysterious and ineluctable was writ
large by Art Audio amplifier designer Joe
Fratus in a wonderfully smooth, balanced-sounding room he shared with
loudspeaker designer Terry Cain of
Cain & Cain."
"Now, I'm not
ordinarily drawn to single-ended-triode amplifiers. Not out of any ennui for
the technology, but because in my experience the fringe elements of
single-ended-triode fan-dumb-mentalism are utterly obnoxious. Sniff
sniff - oh push-pull and solid state are simply inadequate. Uh huh. Get a
life. But Joe Fratus was such an earnest, down-to-earth fellow that I got
caught up in his unbridled enthusiasm for the sonic signature of the
pre-World War II VT-40 triode tube."
:
:
"Best of all were
the rhythm and pacing of bassist Henry Grimes and drummer Billy Higgins on
Sonny Rollins' "You Are My Lucky Star". This 1963 stereo recording is not,
strictly speaking, an audiophile object d'art, but a hard swinging,
avant-garde tinged performance that sums up everything I love about tenor
saxophonist Sonny Rollins and trumpeter Don Cherry during this period in
their development. All the vocalized nuances of Sonny's phrasing were
magnified and illuminated. The high frequency presence and layered midrange
detail of this system gave the cymbals a weightless, shimmering buoyancy,
and the taut, nimble bass response conferred a convincing likeness of the
musicians' literal presence in the room. I felt as though I was right in the
thick of things at the moment of creation. What more could you ask for?"
"Are you
seeking a reasonably priced two-channel system that makes a strong case for
low-powered tubes and high-efficiency speakers? This one, using Cain &
Cain The Abby speakers "
Several references to Cain & Cain products, auditioned in
different homes.
"Hangin'
with Terry Cain in the City So Nice They Named it Twice: Walla Walla
"Hey Jeff, what say you we get together this weekend and finalize the plinth
design for the Garrard 301 turntable project?" queried Terry Cain. "Sounds
fun," said I, "and how about I bring along the Yamamoto 45 for a listen?"
"Sounds great," quipped Terry, "I'd love to hear the little Yammy."
Avail
of our UOB Credit Card Zero % Interest Free Installment Plan.
12 to 24 months !
