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In Reply to: RE: new speakers for a small room. posted by soundquest on July 01, 2009 at 20:47:29
Before my second little girl came along and commandeered it for her nursery I had a room not too much smaller than yours, about 10 X 11. I had the Reynaud Twin Mk II's and the Avalon Acoustic Symbols in that room. Amps were an old Wavelength Audio 300B integrated at about 8 watts and a Sonic Frontiers Power 1 at about 50 watts. The Symbols are rated at 87db and sounded good with the Power 1, but fabulous with the Wavelength. I didn't listen to the Twins much because I loved the clarity of the Avalons. They were the perfect speaker for my small room. I loved their clear open sound and the small footprint (8" X 9") made them easy to place. The Avalon sound isn't for everyone, but with tubes and vinyl they really sounded fabulous.
What I found in my small room was that I could get away with speakers with much lower sensitivity using low powered amps because in a small room, 90db is LOUD. You are only what, 8 feet at most from the speakers after allowing room behind them and some space for a seat of some sort. So, while I'm not recommending the Avalons to you, at $3500 they are a little outside your budget, I just wanted to share my experience that in a small room some amp/speaker pairings that don't look good on paper (Wavelength/Avalon) can really work in practice.
Most of my listening (classical, orchestral, a little jazz) was about 90db peaks, using the old Radio Shack meter, and that was plenty loud for me.
That amp sure looks nice and 30 watts of class A power in a small room will power any speaker you want. Be aware that higher sensitivity speakers may give you less freedom in attenuation in a small room before it gets really loud, so if your amp sounds better full throttle keep that in mind.
Caveat: My room, my gear, my ears.
Thank you everyone for the advice. I sure do appreciate it. The big problem I'm Having is that there are just to many choices and no realistic way to hear them all before I decide.
I do like the Reynaud sound musetap, and the Trente was my dream speaker when I originally purchased the Twin's, it was just outside my budget at the time. The Duet might be a really good choice. The descriptions I've read sound as though they might have turned this speaker from a sleeper into a true giant.
I also appreciate your comments sibelius about a speaker having to high a sensitivity as honestly, it's not something I had given a great deal of thought. I know specs cannot always tell the whole story and I dont really listen all that loud, but I do like to crank up some Meat Puppets or Funkadelic every now and then so I'm not sure if the lower sensitivity of the Spendor or Harbeth would be a major limiting factor. Possibly not.
Furnishings and small room size do make a difference! But yes 90db in a small room is indeed quite loud! Maybe I should convince Jay at Audio Revelation to get a pair of NP2.0's for me to hear. I think the Symbol might be more money than I want to spend.
I have a feeling that the Harbeth, although I'm sure quite amazing might be a little too small. As Jeffrey Catalano put it in a recent conversation the one big drawback with most small monitor's is that they sound like they have their cheeks clenched tight. Very true. Some small speakers don't have the ability to swell up and get big when the music demands. They sound as if they are constantly holding their breath.
Thanks for the advice everyone and I'll keep you posted!
BTW, not much mention of the Devore or Odeon. Has anyone heard these?
I got lucky when I was auditioning speakers. My dealer carried Avalon, Quad, ProAc, Joseph Audio (another good slim floor stander) and at the time had a pair of Verity speakers. I'd heard JM Labs, Alon, Paradigm, PSB, Totem, B&W (which I was replacing). I finally found a sound I liked in Avalon (well, I REALLY liked the Quads, but no way I had the room for them), and one Saturday they had the just introduced Symbols in their listening room. As I said, perfect size, great sound.
Even if you live in an area like I do where there are lots of dealers to sample from it's a really difficult task to audition speakers. Since I've lost my room and all my gear is packed in the closet I've moved to headphones, something I never thought I'd do. I'll tell you, they are much easier to audition; order from Amazon or Headroom, listen, decide, return, repeat until satisfied.
My best advice would be to be patient and don't buy something until you find a speaker you really like, especially at the $ you are looking to spend.
Best of luck.
Good advice Sibelius. Sometimes instant gratification is a hard to resist. There are a lot of very nice speakers out there. The Quads are some of my favorites too.
Since the subject of Reynauds has already been introduced here, I'm not sure whether this is outside the rules or not, but what I'd suggest, IF you decide to stick with JMR's, are Cantabile Signatures, rather than Duets. Duets are fine but based on what you say, you might find the Cantabs more suitable. They are a somewhat more refined version of a Trente in a floorstander. Very easy to drive. If they kill this post, post a question to inmate Budrew, who has these speakers and can give you an unbiased assessment.
Edits: 07/02/09
Thanks Bob. I will ask him.
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