Home Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

I think everyone is dancing around your real problem here...

including you. You said it yourself "your room is not great" - You have tried out a number of top flight speakers and you keep moving on and you will keep moving on as a result.

Get a professional dealer to investigate your room and take appropriate steps to increase the quality of the room as a listening environment...great speakers won't be great in bad rooms. The De Capo you say you've had about a year and that's the LONGEST in the past 7-8 years. My Heaven MAN shake your head in shame!!!! There is something wrong there and it isn't the speakers...sure the odd one but several top flight speakers all not good enough.

You seem to want the qualities of the De Capo(Dynamics and transparency) but you want the fuller warmth of the spender(less dynamic and less transparent). One reason I like the HD600 headphone is that it gives me 95% of the electrostatic presentation with dynamics...but the can is analytical...so I match a tube amp with them to fatten up the midrange a bit.

Before you go chasing after every new speaker that gets a good review like a dog chases every new car that rolls down the street - take a step back and determine what the real problem is. You don't have to follow the BUZZ words of transparency and detail etc...what you need to do is enjoy the music. And sometimes a more enjoyable speaker can be obtained with objectively worse numbers. I have had my speakers ten+ years and they have big disadvantages in a number of aspects to most new speakers(in fact my lowly B&W 302s have certain advantages at 1/10 the price)...notably my Wharfedales have a personality. The point though is that I have heard a LOT of speakers that are tempting but are missing certain things I want. You should not take a step back in parts of the sound when buying a new speaker just because it's better in certain things...it should be better in all things.

Speakers above the De Capo I have found to have a significantly high level of diminishing returns for improvements gained. Detail and transparency are fine - some do it better - but if it does not move you then they are valueless IMO.

I am biased because I love the De Capo (i) - I would be looking at your amp your source and most importantly your room/set-up. Wrm up the mid range with tubes if you must...and not all tube amps warm up the sound...I have run across several that sound mre analytical than several Solid state amps from the likes of Sugden and Creek etc. Thiel and B&W if anything make even more analytical speakers and I find Vandersteen, generally, to be lacking life.


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