So I’ve had a pair of Iotas (MK1) in my small office for about two years connected to a UQ2. Always enjoyable to listen to. But lately thinking that there’s a lack of zip, zing, something. To the point that last week I was prepared to move them on for something else.
Over the weekend I had the house to myself with no limits to volume control. Naturally, I cranked them up while I was doing some light work at heavy volume. Man did they come alive. To the point that I was wondering why I have them in a room where their potential is wasted.
Anyone experiencing the same thing? Either with Iotas or the rest of the Neat range?
I have a UQ1, with updated streaming board, and Iotas, on TV/AV duties in our front room. I love the combo, I hadn’t particularly noticed them come alive when cranked up (nor do I feel they are lacking when not!) but I do love them and the TV sounds great through them despite very sub-optional positioning!
What really woke my Iotas up was swapping the Atom driving them for a Nait 50. It was amazing what those little boxes still had to give, even at lesser volumes.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re of course good at lower volumes. It was just a moment where I sat up straight and said to myself: ‘wow - these are really great.’ I’ve had the same experience with my LS50s, but this one was definitely more of a dramatic change.
I love my Iotas! They get far more listening time in my shed than my NC system in the house. Started with the UQ2 in 2013 and moved up to the Atom about 3 years ago and really appreciated the uplift and dynamic range.
The Neat IOTAs are excellent (especially when bought from @HungryHalibut - ); I have them as a seondary pair (not in profile) of speakers.
They do thrive on more power - the treble and upper mid is the strong point.
I would be interested to hear the Iota Alphas, I expect they would be excellent in a small room environment.
Very interesting. I’ve only listened to them on the end of a UQ2. My 155/172 combo is sitting idle at the moment. Perhaps I move them into the office and see if there’s a noticeable difference. Hmm.
We tried iotas with a Nova against a few options, including the smallest Spendors. The iota were great at gentler music, but they didn’t have enough bass punch to grab us at low volume or to play heavy stuff loud.
She bought iota Alphas ex-dem instead. They are frankly astonishing, esp given the size. They also worked with the Atom I have upstairs, but definitely prefer the extra dive of the Nova.
For a big space in the holiday cottage, we have ND5XS2/ 82/ Hicap/ 250. The Xplorers are fantastic for there - all the pluses you expect from the baby Neats plus all the drive, volume, bass and general boogie that you would expect from a much bigger and more expensive box.
Exactly my experience, I have Iota’s on my desk driven by a Superuniti. I’ve had these for some years now and my conclusion is that they need playing loud to sound “right”, definitely not near field speakers, at least not for me. A change is long overdue!
OK, I’ll put my head above the parapet and say when I demoed Iotas (with an Atom HE and Olive 250) I was actually a bit disappointed, and rather different findings to those above
Plenty of energy, ‘boogie’ and amazing heft for the size but I felt the ribbon tweeter was a bit too sharp and the bass a bit slow and lacked detail. All told I thought they felt a little unbalanced and unsophisticated, and rather genre specific. Give them sweet sounding acoustic music, vocals etc and the tweeter really shone but I thought they were just a bit rowdy and fell apart somewhat on complex faster music. I compared them to Shahinian Larcs which are just ridiculous for the size and in some ways a bit similar, great at smooth. classical etc but not really for the thrashier end of my musical tastes and finally ATC SCM11. These were more musical, definitely more neutral and for me they came alive at higher volume where the Iota just got a bit tiresome. The ATC’s lost out a bit at the low end but not in a way that was decisive, and the bass sounded more nuanced to me.
Since my 2nd system space is quite large the speakers need some welly for normal listening. I went with the ATC, plus a v small REL sub.
I respect the views of others who’ve had different experiences, and I definitely liked some things about the Iota but they were not for me. I liked their footprint and fairly flexible positioning, and on some tracks they were fantastic but just a bit too ‘rough and ready’ for me.
I would love to get a pair of ATCs into this space (or may main listening room for that matter) and see how they do. I’ve only heard them in a dealers listening room and they didn’t really grab me. But there’s so many here that have them that the social proof is pretty compelling.
I think the ATCs I have, and perhaps others, tend towards neutrality and accuracy which doesn’t suit everyone. Some might interpret that as a bit ‘sterile’ maybe? Suited my tastes/location and usage anyway. I still have SL2s in my main system.
I have the Iotas, LS50 Metas, and Klipsch Heresy IIIs all around the house and I love them all for different reasons. I could probably get on with a pair of ATCs.
Neutrality is a quite explicit design aim of ATC. In part that comes from their pro monitoring heritage. But not everyone feels that speakers that are great for monitoring are a good choice in a domestic setting, so I entirely understand different reactions to ATC’s models for home hifi.
); I have them as a seondary pair (not in profile) of speakers.
