A very nice speaker never get tired of listening to them. The best part is that you can use a low wattage amp and it plays sweet. They also don’t take much room it’s a very small footprint so big sound for the size.

the mystique II are simply the best speakers i have heard under 12k. i recently listened to the new vandersteen treo speakers and while good, they simply do not compare to the mystique. i keep thinking that i will upgrade and always conclude that these are better than anything i could afford. they are open, tranparent and always sound like music not just speakers making music. my only regret is thart they are no longer produced. scott

I have these babies for more than 3 years now and it's time to write what i fell about them. What all other reviewers wrote is TRUE. they are most musical speakers i ever heard in my life. they play anyting you throw at them with ease and this include even hardest musical passages like National Health or Magma. they are really fast and let you forget about sound, just concentrate to music you love. Soundstage is very big. in fact bigger than any flat earth speakers i heard before. tone is very balanced. not bright nor bassy but bass is ultra fast that if you're used to boomy bass these babies may sound basslight to you.
Now i want to write a few hints about using them becouse they are mostly mentioned as easy to place just plug and play speakers which is completely wrong. they sound great for 500 Pound peakers even if they are not used properly but when they are used properly they are just better than anything i heard.

1. they are 86 Db which means you need a good amp to drive these. i have a nait 5i which is just enough but i use a black box called Harmonic Recovery System which adds 3 DB to the gainstage and helps my Nait to drive these with better control. even with this set up they come alive higher than normal listening levels so if you are doing lots of late night listenings consider buying a monster amp to wake these up at low levels.

2. you have to hear them with mana soundbases to hear their full potential. i heard mana under many equipments and none effeceted sound this much. they are really transformed with mana support. (make sure to set up soundbases properly with spirit level.)

3. They are not easy to place. even 1 cm away or close to wall changes sound dramatically. i experimented a few weeks to find the right place for them. in my room optimal sound is when they are 30 cm away from back wall with a very little toe in.

4. Remove their own jumpers and use your speaker cable for link with double set of bananas. Like this;
http://members.shaw.ca/mikesae/speakers.htm

if you pay attention to these details Mystiques are most fun and funky speakers a musiclover can have. and really enough for a lifetime. i used to buy new speakers almost every year since early 90's till i found them. now i feel like they are my last speakers :-)

Clarity, openess, control, spaciousness, depth, transparancy.

Absolutly none

I got these s/h from ebay for £375.00, went to listen to them at the sellers home and as soon as he fired them up i knew there was something special about these speakers.
you hear people saying "i never heard that feint cybal in the background or that second guitar was not there before", well i used to think, yeah if you say so.... but these have really opened my eyes.lack of bass!.... no way, if you think these lack bas i would look at another part of your system, it's tight and ultra controlled!
everything i play through them just falls out the speaker like it was'nt there.
i have around 3,000+ cd's and everyone i've played so far from Beatles to Zeppelin-classical to blues, has just blown me away.
you can't describe the sound of theses speakers as they are so transparent you hear what's been recoeded and not what the speaker manurfacturer has tuned there speakers, in there way ,for you to hear.
if you see a pair, but them, don't ask questions, just buy them, you won't be disappointed

Customer Service

Never had to trouble them!

Similar Products Used:

Mission 752, Royd Minstrel, Castle Howard

Speed, agilty, timing and the abitily to draw you into the music and give a life like performance. Well built and veneered

Long running in-period and could look a bit more stylish

I’ve auditioned many speakers over the last few months and nothing has come close to these to the Neat’s, this includes the Quad 21L and 22L, Monitor audio RS5 and RS6 and some Rega speakers too.

I’ve owned a few pairs of decent kef’s and Mission speakers over the years and was impressed by them all, but always knew that in certain departments each one had it’s own weakness, the Mystique’s don’t seem to have any.

The sound quality is very high and clear, voices have a in the room presence, you can hear the subtle difference when the performer moves round the microphone or smiles as he/she sing the words. Listening to my CD collection I heard new melodies and instruments embedded in the tracks I hadn’t heard before, subtle intakes of breath and the sliding of fingers over guitars stings which I didn’t know was there with my old AE’s
The top end is accurate and expressive without being to forward or sharp. Bass is quicker, taut and punchy. Drum beats hit hard and decay as if the drum kit is in the room with you, there’s no slow flabby bass which dominates the music like on some speakers.
The most impressive aspect is the agility of the speakers, complex melodies start and stop with out interfering with the rest of the elements of the music, the amount different layers which can be heard during complex pieces of music is some thing I haven’t heard before, each instrument has it’s own space in the sound stage and can be picked out in between and outside of the speakers in a wide sound stage.

Similar Products Used:

Kef's, Mission, Monitor Audio

tuneful quick bass, delightfully easy to drive and quite musical !

none.

What everybody has said of these speakers is true; they are truly exceptional in that they stand aside and let the music flow out freely. This is a rare quality at most any price let alone a 1500$ pair. They're tunefull bass and open quality will leave the owner contently listening for hours at a time. I'm using mine with 50 watt solid state and it's a match made in heaven. I haven't tried them with tubes but imagine it may be a sweet combo. Discriptors ? - tight tunefull and suprisingly extended botton end for such a compact tower. the treble is nicely detailed and not over the top, and then there's that wonderful open midband that just speaks to the listener- as in very communicative, and thoroughly addicting. A very good speaker even at the retail level. .. enjoy!

Similar Products Used:

b&w, meadowlark, spendor, proac.

Rich soundstage, incredible detail, outstanding, abundant bass. Smaller size, but tremendous sound. They're pretty to look at. Excellent workmanship on the cabinets. Overall a real winner.

Vitos, indeed, I think all Neats at this point have no screens; the woofers are bare! Hence they're more vulnerable to accidental damage. Heavy with the bases attached. It's hell researching these dudes because there's virtually nothing out there! Company is quite unfamiliar at this point.

This review is for the Neat Vito. I'm writing this to help relieve the great information vacuum about these amazing speakers. I cannot begin to say how delighted I am with these lovely little darlings. They look beatiful, they perform wonderfully, and I think I got a great deal on them pre-owned. They were top of the line in '03. People have complained of other Neat speakers of no bass. The Vito's have a TON of bass -- it's just very controlled, tight. It's incredible how they get so much bass with these small woofers. The enclosure is "isobaric," -- maybe this has something to do with it. The speakers bolt onto 40-lb. slabs of slate, an inch or so above the heavy stone plates, one per speaker. (The slab in turn has four spikes.) There are two bass ports: one high up in back, another directly under the beautiful wooden enclosure, firing into the gap between slate and enclosure. They are bi-wirable, and that's how I run them. The craftsmanship of the wood cabinet is excellent. When I first got them, I was a little disconcerted by the extent to which I was analyzing their sound. I thought it was bad that I couldn't sit back and enjoy. I was nervous spending this much money and wanted to scrutinize their performance. Finally it dawned on me that this was because their sonic presentation is quite simply fascinating. The abundance of rich colorful detail is stunning. One particularly apt word is Honest. The better your gear, the more these beauties will reward you. I happen to be blessed with some rather god-like Classe amplifiers, and these speakers SING, even with a run-of-the-mill Philips SACD. These Vitos seem to need a touch more power than other speakers. I've got 400 watts into 8 ohms, but I'm at 9 or 10 o'clock on the volume quite often -- lovin' life all the way. Nothing beats an in-person (and preferably in-home) audition of gear. I cannot say whether or not you will like them, but I really do. I think they're tremendous. They do great with jazz -- Keith Jarrett, Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Little stuff like percussion, bells, the tiniest, most delicate sounds, plainly, in stunning clarity delivered to your ears. Acoustic bass so woody and pretty. I'm constantly tricked by the Vitos' level of realism: I keep thinking that someone is moving about or coming into the room, or that something has fallen over. The sound truly has this "you are there" quality that has taken some getting used to! Quite incredible. Classical, vocal music. Telarc recordings sound great, Bach period-instruments. Brass, wow. Orchestral music is rich, but you hear the higher dB of background "air". I say again, tremendously revealing and Honest. Electronic/Space music is awesome. Anything not so good? Yeah, kinda. Poor recordings. These will not sugar-coat or gloss over poor recordings. Poorly recorded? They will faithfully relay this fact to you. Dark Side has the most distinctive 70s "timbre" to it. It doesn't sound poor, just vintage. These Vitos will play very loud, but are rather better suited for lower- and mid-level play, and more near-field use. As I always say, If you want ear-splitting volume and wall-shaking bass, buy a PA or monitor system. I'm an electric bassist myself with a 400 watt tube bass system and verily I say unto you, if you have insufficient bass coming out of Neat Vitos, then something is amiss alsewhere in the system. If you Yahoo this, http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/general/messages/168290.html, as of this writing, you can see a picture of a pair in black; mine are blonde, I'm not sure what kind of wood mine are. If you come across a pair, do yourself a favor. Audition them. Maybe they don't appeal to you as they do me. But a speaker of this quality deserves a careful listen. I can't say unequivocally "Buy the Vitos," (as I can for the god-like Classe CA-400;) because above all other gear, speakers are soo subjective. But I'm keeping these Vitos. I love 'em.

see above DESCRIPTORS

Your friend might not say-- "wait-- on my Super Classic Monitors (mk. 5SE anniversary) Amanda's voice appears 3 feet to the left of the left channel-- not 2.77 and the spoken 'well done' from pianist Ann Marie Stanczyk's coach on my Stereophile piano cd (that 3 people bought because the playing is so bad-- well recorded though) is supposed to come from 2.98 feet to the right- not 1.67; my speakers are better."

The Mystique 2's take about 150 hours to break-in fully. Hang in there. Then they become a wonderfully involving, musical loudspeaker. MUSICAL; Meaning that audio terminology will not come to mind when listening to them. You'll just think "great playing Clapton, me boy!" and "smokin' high notes, Luciano!" And that's about it. After hearing the Mystiques in my house, I got rid of the other speakers hangin' round my back room pronto. You know-- the ones called "classics" with the huge ports and the "billowy 3-dimensional soundstage" described by some crack-pipe-hittin' reviewer listening for the breathiness on some Amanda Mcbroom recording or other. This is because I realized that all those speakers make SOUNDS-- not music. And most importantly--They are NO FUN. Descriptors for the NEATs? sure-- here goes-- fast/punchy/balanced/involving/no bloat/easy-to- place-allrounders/beautifully finished. And the biggie-- MUSICAL. They have brought the FUN back to my listening no matter what's in the cd player. Now that's NEAT.

Similar Products Used:

Dunlavy's, Reference 3a De Capo i, many others (Stereophile approved)in my brief lifetime.

any type of music

need a lot of power to drive them

This is a follow up to a review that I posted earlier. Several months ago I got my hands on Exposure's Super 15 and now realize that it was the previous amplifier that wasn't producing enough bass. The Super 15 takes control of these Mystiques and dominates them. Bass? No problem, there's plenty of it, it goes low, and it's well defined to boot. Midrange is still as beautifully sweet as it was before. I shouldn't use the word sweet to describe the mid-range as it might be taken the wrong way. The midrange is so very pure and clean, and it let's the music come falling out. The highs from the tweeter are seemlessly blended with the midrange, and they produce a wonderful upper-range.

If you ever get to listen to these speakers, make sure that you have some of your favorite intimate music. (Jazz, chamber music, acoustic rock, or anything acoustic). You'll sit there and be subtly gripped by these pieces of music in a way that has not happened before. Even if you don't settle on these speakers, your idea of listening to music is going to be challenged. These speakers sound different because IMHO they present the music as it should be: true, accurate, and beautiful.

If you can find an amplifier that can drive it, this speaker will bring the music to your soul whether it's rock, jazz, classical, or whatever you listen too. I was in love with this speaker before, but now that I have discovered its low-end capabilities with my better amplifier, I can easily say that this speaker outclasses all others. It does so many things right and almost nothing wrong.

Similar Products Used:

naim, dynaudio, jpl, rega, linn, aegis, krell, martin logan

excellent balanced sound, no boxiness.

for me none

Excellent speakers that simply let you get on with enjoying music. No boxiness whatsoever, the music fills the room without you being aware of where it's coming from. Soundstaging is precise and coupled with a good amplifier the sound has a very solid presence. While the previous reviewer critised the bass I feel that the bass is very tight and controlled, being easy to follow without overpowering the sound. They do go deep, they just don't drown everything out with bass. I would have to recomend them without any hesitation.

Similar Products Used:

B&W 605, Linn speakers.