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Hello inmates,
I am looking to give my NHT Classic 3's a break and try something new. Right now I have narrowed it down to the KEF ls50's and NSMT Model 20M. Both are concentric designs, which I am curious about, but retain the sealed cabinet which I prefer. There is a lot out there about the LS50's but not much on the NSMT's.
I have also looked at the Harbeth P3ESR, but not sure if they will be a good fit for my listening taste.
My room is 11x 14.5 x 7.5, and my taste is mostly rock and blues, with a little jazz thrown in. The amp is a Jolida JD1501BRC tube hybrid which puts out 100w @8ohm and 180w @4ohm.
Anyone here with any experience on the speakers mentioned?
TIA.
____
"The blues ain't nothin' but a low-down shakin' chill. If you never had 'em, children, I sure hope you never will"
Eddie J. "Son" House
Follow Ups:
The Audio Note AX-2, bigger than a mini, and designed by a person with an LS3/5A background.
Observe, before you think. Think before you open your yap. Act on the basis of experience.
I'm not particularly knowledgeable about AN speakers, but aren't they designed for corner, or at least near-wall, placement? Or do they do okay in more of a free-field placement?
-Bob
They are designed for near wall corner but I ran them for 2 years freestanding and they sound just fine there (as do their bigger speakers) but the ideal is hard in corners.I have further comments here and I compare it to my LS-50
Edits: 07/28/14
Good info! Thanks.
-Bob
the NSMTs. Personally, I think the Ls50s are very neatral and coherent, but I honestly don’t like the sound of the materials so much.
I think Erol Ricketts does great work and has a very good ear for voicing.
I have heard the Aerial 5B and the LS50's and for your tastes and room, etc., I don't think you'd be happy with the Aerials (with all due respect to John Marks since they are very good speakers). You would need a subwoofer for your music tastes since they are rated down to 60hz and every time I heard them they sounded too lean in the bass dep't unless you were willing to forgo "rock and blues" bass (independent of their sealed design and rolloff factors). The LS50's are excellent and impressive and would be more suited to your needs I think. However, there are lots of good speakers out there such as Joseph Audio RM7XL's or Devore 3's or Totem One's, etc. that you might want to look into.
Hello all,
wow thanks for the all the great info. I realized the LS50's are ported, but I had read they come with bung plugs to simulate a sealed response,
don't know if these really work though. John has muddied the waters a little more with the Aerial recommendation, but that looks really interesting. I have a good servo driven subwoofer, so I am not to worried about the bottom octave, but would like to get something that wouldn't sound stressed. No one has any ideas about the NSM's?
____
"The blues ain't nothin' but a low-down shakin' chill. If you never had 'em, children, I sure hope you never will"
Eddie J. "Son" House
I run my KEFs plugged, which reduces the bass output some and helps integrate them with the stereo subs I use. I would say if you do plug them, subs are mandatory.
The Harbeth's would be a perfect fit for your size listening room. That small sealed woofer's bass is outstanding. I think it is a special sounding speaker and it rocks with the best of them. If you are looking to spend less you should also check out the Spendor 3/5r2. To my ears a sealed woofer no matter how small the bass is, is just more natural sounding than a ported one even at twice the size. BTW in Stereophiles June issue John Marks wrote a great article on sealed speakers.
I've owned the original S3/5 and heard the S3/5se.
I've now heard in my system the S3/5R2 and it is far and away the best of the three. Midrange = the original LS3/5a (which was not true of the earlier versions.
S3/5R2 = $1595, P3ESR = $2295.
Opinions will vary on which is better, but one is obviously quite a bit less expensive - $700 ain't chump change.
"The problem with quotes from the internet is that many of them just are just made up."
-Abraham Lincoln
I had the 3/5 and the 3/5r. Both were outstanding, but I still think the Harbeth P3 ESR betters them. BTW I got the Harbeths (DEMO'S) from a dealer for $1500. My friend came over to give them a listen and sold his Spendors and bought a pair of the P3's.
To be able to hear firsthand Winslow Burhoe's memories of his work with Edgar Villchur has been an honor.
ATB,
John
I heard both of these speakers at Axpona this year and have heard thes KEFs in a friends small room. The KEFs image like a MFer. The Ariels sound way larger than they are. For my room I would take the Ariels but a smaller room the KEFs. Both are exceptional.
bigshow
I think that Aerial's 5B gets past a tipping point and it is (like ATC's SCM19) not a "small speaker" but just a "speaker."
While ATC's SCM 19 probably has more finesse and is way more better looking, it is in the ballpark of costing twice as much.
If the OP were as into string quartets as much as I am, I think that the P3ESR would be in the hunt. But for blues and rock, AFAIK, the Aerial 5B is the price/performance leader.
JM
The Ascend Acoustics Sierra 2 is a hair bigger than the Harbeth (and maybe the KEF) has an incredible RAAL tweeter.
I've heard them all in the same room, I might take the Ascend, but they're all good.
"The problem with quotes from the internet is that many of them just are just made up."
-Abraham Lincoln
While all the other Harbeth speakers I have experience with have been ported, the P3ESR is a sealed box because it is Harbeth's "continuation" of the BBC-designed LS3/5A.
Honestly, I have serious doubt about using the P3ESR or any BBC-OB-monitor "heritage" speaker with a 5" woofer for serious blues and rock listening. Stevie Ray Vaughan? Dire Straits? I think not... .
At close to the same money as the P3ESR is Aerial's US-made sealed 5B, which is very robust--pretty bombproof. It gets used a lot in custom home theater installations where the speakers are hidden behind stretched fabric.
NB, Aerial's 7.1" woofer has TWICE the frontal area of the P3ESR's 5" woofer--the frontal area goes up by the square of the difference, the formula being A = Pi x R x R.
The Aerial is what I would recommended to a blues and rock lover. JA was very impressed, see his measurements, link below.
JM
Ive sold a ton of Aerials 5b's and Michael is a great guy. But the aerials are not as refined as the Kef or the Harbeth imo. I own the kef and the Harbeth and sold my brother in law the 5b's years ago we both agree the kef is the best regardless of price.
There's rarely a free lunch.In this scenario, there is a 1:1 complete and total trade-off between "refinement" and "power."
I will cheerfully grant you that the Harbeth, which I have had several in-depth experiences with, and which I recommended to the publisher of the Steinway Pianos lifestyle magazine I previously wrote for, is more refined than the Aerial, which I characterized as "robust" and "bombproof."
But what is the need we are trying to respond to?
The OP listens to BLUES AND ROCK.
NOT to the chamber music of Olivier Messiaen.
To quote Nina Hartley, "Let's do a little thought experiment."
The test track is Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Tin Pan Alley."
Connect the Harbeths, and turn the volume up to 11.
Then, connect the Aerials, and turn the volume up to 11.
What do you think will happen?
With all due respect, anyone who can IMAGINE (because that is what is going on) that the Harbeth P3ESRs can do justice to SRV does not get out to hear live music.
Horses for courses. And the P3ESRs are not mudders.
I confess I have not heard the KEF. I have great respect for KEF's engineers but they can't break the laws of physics. KEF's 5.25-inch woofer/mid simply cannot move as much air as Aerial's 7.1-inch woofer/mid.
The OP can make up his own mind, but in my experience, when people say they like rock, they do not listen at baroque trio sonata levels.
JM
Edits: 07/28/14
Your right ive never heard a live concert. Your the expert so you are always right. Im talking about listening to music in my home not blasting at 100db maybe you need some Nina! In fact i heard Stevie play Tin pan in Austin live but you know im just some guy that likes music. Not an audiophile professional.
Edits: 07/28/14
SRV at Steamboat in 1980.
Beans in cellophane.
Very noice. :)
😝?
Not only frontal area of the driver, but the fact that because it is a ported design, the KEF will roll off in the bass twice as fast.
Seeing as the KEF and the Aerial have bass specs that are within a few Hertz of each other (bass -3dB 79Hz for the KEF vs. 70 for the Aerial), that means that the Aerial will have deeper bass in the room an also be easier to place in the room, the classic sealed-box virtues.
I will be happy if the OP can hear both speakers and make his own decision. And if he chooses finesse over power, that is fine.
It's also fine with me if he buys the KEF and spends the increment to the Aerial on a good subwoofer, as long as he realizes the trade-offs in having a mono source for the deep bass.
Have a nice day.
JM
PS: Nina doesn't come around any more; she and Mandy Rice-Davies don't like each other.
JM -
"PS: Nina doesn't come around here any more; she and Mandy Rice-Davies don't like each other."
I suppose that Christine Keeler doesn't come around any more either ;-)
Cheers,
Al
nt
True, but have you had a recent look at Ms. Keeler? Tragic! Mandy has the last laugh.
BTW: I own a reproduction of that Arne Jacobsen chair. Tried to get my wife to sit in it and strike a pose like Chrissy's about three decades ago, but she wasn't having any of it.
Cheers,
Al
I would not even have tried.
BTW: Chrissie's chair was a knock-off.
The handgrip cutout was perhaps put there so the chair could not be blocked at the border on importation, for infringing a patent or trademark.
I attach a photo of a more accurate clone.
I know a woman who came back from Paris to the US before 1963 (and so before the Scandal), and Christine and Mandy were traveling on the same liner. The conventional wisdom was that they were not students, as my friend was, but very discreet call girls.
JM
Again I knew the specs would creep in here. The kef is very DYNAMIC. I'm getting bass in the lower 40 hz range in my room AND SOME PEEPS IN THE UPPER 30 hz range, so Tin Pan Alley rocks! As far as mono bass, meaning like the bass on records that's recorded in mono, he will not hear that the bass is mono with a good sub like the rel. But again the kef doesn't need a sub, IMO. You end with saying "let him make up his mind", but you were doing that for him. I just said I think the Kef SMOKES the 5B IMO. Its an old design IMO! That said, slight omission is minor.
Edits: 07/29/14
I was recently at an art-gallery closing party.
There was a live band, with amplified standup bass.
The bassist had an LS50 for a speaker.
NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT!
JM
Closer to 4, which is how the previous 110 mm units were described for years. Saying it's a 5 inch woofer doesnt make it so. Anyway, i gather that makes the difference between the two woofers even greater.
IIRC, when JA wrote up the P3ESR he referred to its woofer as 5".
I did not know whether that was a rounding off, or whether in starting from scratch to build its own new woofer, Harbeth made it however larger in mm that would be.
But it ends up then that the frontal area of the Aerial 5B's woofer is "more than twice as large" and not just "twice as large."
jm
Do you have a formal review of this speaker in Stereophile? I don't remember seeing one....
JM
A review of the Aerial 5B. But never mind, I found the Stereophilr review of it by you in 2009.
jm
I have heard neither of these speakers, but both have fine reputations. Certainly one difference is cosmetics. The Harbeths will give you a grille and a more standard-looking box enclosure. I do not believe the KEFs come with a grille, so you'd be looking directly at the drivers all the time. Matter of taste.
The KEFs are certainly much less costly.
Do you have small children running about? Those KEF drivers might be very tempting to roving small fingers and pushed-in tweeters might be a concern.
Good luck. Should be fun to listen to either.
I've had LS50's and P3ESR's in a room almost that exact size.
They are remarkably similar speakers.
Either should sound great on your Jolida.
I preferred the dynamics and volume capabilities on the LS50 quite a bit. I still have a pair in my home theater.
Either of these sounds best on a pair of skylan stands two-posters.
"The problem with quotes from the internet is that many of them just are just made up."
-Abraham Lincoln
neither the KEF nor Harbeth are sealed designs. But the rep of the Harbeth(Haven't heard it) is superb and the LS50 is a great speaker especially for the dollars.
Actually the Harbeth is a sealed design.
For either speaker you should try the new Totem Kin subwoofer. Not expensive, and not super loud but blends great and very musical.
"The problem with quotes from the internet is that many of them just are just made up."
-Abraham Lincoln
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