My first impulse is to describe what this system sounds like compared to (my memories of) the Asawari Mk I.

• The bass is amazing. I am surprised at the bass extension. I suspect that this is in part, because of the smaller enclosure. The Mark I had an underdamped enclosure; this one is only barely underdamped. The bass impact too is better than that of the Mark I, though this is is no disco-party shaker. Things like double-bass in jazz vocal pieces just energise the room with their depth and richness.
• The highs: The sharp and brittle highs of the Mark I are not there here. I have done no tweeter level tweaking. Listening to the Mark II on-axis may sometimes give the impression that the high treble is a bit too strong. Listening 15-20 degrees off-axis cures this, and I would recommend listening a bit off-axis to all speakers in domestic settings anyway. However, even on-axis, when the high treble is quite strong in some songs, it does not sound brittle like the Mark I, and does not generate listener fatigue.
• Tonal balance: seems quite even. I've played a lot of different genres, from Hindustani classical recorded without almost any processing, to Western music and movie soundtracks. The speakers seem to play back each type of music "in its type". What is expected to sound soft and warm (Ganpati Bhat, Harry Bellafonte) seems to sound soft and warm. What is expected to sound hard-edged (theme songs from Bond 007 films) seem to sound the way you would expect them. Shirley Bassey, recorded in the fifties, sounds a mix of very powerful highs and softer passages.
• Voices: are breathtaking. I tried Harry Bellafonte to Shirley Bassey, with Mark Knopfler, Chhannulal Mishra and Patricia Barber in between. All of them sound -- well, themselves. Very satisfying.
• Transients: seem to be very good. Guitar ("Friday night in San Francisco", John McLaughlin, Paco de Lucia, and Al Di Meola) sounds good. Rock guitar (Mark Knopfler) sounds good. Sharp and clean but without listening fatigue.
• Soundstage: I am a bit in two minds about this. The soundstage seems to be more confused than the super-etched soundstage I had heard with the Mark I. Well recorded pieces (e.g. Chesky audiophile recordings) seem to have excellent soundstage, but others are a mixed bag. Update: More listening seems to indicate that albums which have good soundstage play back with good soundstage. Less than 50% albums seem to do this. It's possible that this is a feature of the recording than the speakers, considering that I listen to all sorts of albums from all sorts of genres and recording styles. Update: It seems that speaker placement and the "correct" SPL are needed to get a good soundstage. If the volume is too high, the soundstage muddies, no doubt due to room reflections. And if the speakers are less than about four feet from the rear wall, then too the soundstage seems to get somewhat flattened out.
• Other traits:
  • This system throws up recording quality and environment details amazingly well. You can hear different degree of hall reverberation in different live concert albums. Most hard rock live albums seem to have mediocre recording cleanness. Chesky albums sound extremely good.
  • The sound seems very detailed, without any artificial brightness or listening fatigue.
  • When playing a symphony album, the loud passages seem to have a wonderful tonal balance, no harshness (even Deutsche Gramophon's von Karajan's Beethoven symphonies collection). And they sound, for want of a better word, "unforced", as if showing no sign of strain to handle the crescendos. Those pieces really come alive, instead of merely sounding "loud" and "grand" in a meaningless sort of way, which I used to get from worse systems.

My thoughts about the design decisions

The Mark II is clearly an improvement on the Mark I, in my humble opinion. Two decisions have had an impact on the performance relative to the Mark I, in my opinion:

• selecting a lower crossover frequency: may have cleaned up the midrange and upper mids somewhat
• switching to a smoother silk dome from a harsher aluminium dome tweeter
• The smaller box volume has tightened bass -- it is not as underdamped as the Mark I. The 3mH woofer inductor (compared to the 1.5mH coil in the Mark I) has probably added a touch more weight to the bottom of the frequency range -- a bit like a touch too much BSC. I will leave it as it is for now.

There will be other factors which I cannot identify, but the Mark II is clearly a different animal from the Mark I.

Drawing the project to a close

I will wait to see what my friend (who will pick up the speakers) feels. (My deal with my friends is that they do not need to commit to picking up anything I make till they hear them and like them in their own living rooms.) I hope he likes them. He is a Dylan devotee, and also likes most of classic rock. He has not started exploring classical music, and seems to hear relatively little of jazz, etc.

I will have to listen to the speakers for a few months to really make up my mind about them -- this is true of any speakers. However, I have a feeling I will not be permitted that much time. Hope they find a good home.