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This is not a review, but instead a video discussing what I know of the legendary Epos ES14 speakers, after owning three pairs for many years. If I've gotten anything wrong, or if you have additional information on the ES14 you'd like to share, please let me know in the comments.
Pros:
- Seamlessness/ Coherence.
- Huge soundstage.
- Dense performance (lots of midrange information)
- Palpable performance (performers have body)
- Chameleon-like (can sound big and round, but also fast and agile. Depends on source material)
- Can deliver an emotionally moving performance in their delivery of some music.
Cons:
- Not the most refined or extended treble. Can sound too dull in the top end for some.
- Bottom end can be all over the place, from too much bass/ too boomy, to too little bass/ constipated. Bungs are very useful to tune the bass, but it still doesn't fix the low end shortcomings. No sub required in a small to medium room. Sub required in a larger room.
- The speakers are extremely difficult to place, in my experience. Very incremental changes in positioning can make or break the sound. When these are not set up correctly, they can sound awful.
- Can be a bit too soft in their sound delivery.
- Can seem too 'forward' in the midrange to an ear that's not used to it (in actuality, there's just a lot of midrange information, and many people aren't used to that). Close attention to placement is crucial to getting them to sound their best.
- Bad vertical dispersion, in my experience.
- Must be listening attentively to really appreciate them, in my opinion.
- Not the best all-rounder.
- Not an 'exciting' listen (newbie audiophiles may not understand their appeal).
Short sound clips:
• It's an ES14 kinda Sun...
• Epos ES14 Mk1 playing ...
Addendum:
In this video, I stated that Robin Marshall started Epos after leaving the BBC. While that's technically correct, I forgot to mention that before starting Epos, he worked for Mo Iqbal of Monitor Audio fame. Marshall designed MA's R-Series speakers at that time (R252, R352, R852MD, R952MD and possibly others).
I also wanted to mention that I use my ES14s speakers with the bungs loosely in place, even though I have the speakers out in the room (whereupon you'd normally want to remove the bung for the added/ looser bass). With the bungs in, the vocal image sharpens up quite a bit, and the bass, while reduced, gets tighter. So, I compensate with a sub for the very lowest end, still allowing the ES14s to run full-range. For music listening, I still sometimes turn the sub off entirely.
Also, I drive the speakers primarily with an Exposure 2010 integrated amp. From time to time, I use my Sugden A48b, which actually sounds better (I use the Exposure more b/c it has a remote). Source music is uncompressed digital files fed from either of two computers, to one of four DACs (Schitt Modi Multibit, SMSL Sanskrit 10th Anniversary Edition V2, NuForce uDAC-1, or NuForce uDAC-3).