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I'll start, but I was wondering what others short list of speakers they would like to check out is. By check out, I mean have all at once to see which you prefer! I am also speaking of speakers one can, or are willing to afford, not pie and the sky speakers. Here is my short list, I am sure there are many I have forgotten.1. KEF 105.2's
2. Vandersteen 2CE Signatures with mod mentioned below
3. B & W CMD9 NT's
4. Paradigm Studio 100's version 2'sShoot, last but not least, not sure how I managed to forget them:
5. Thiel 3.6's
I suspect the KEFs would be hurting without fresh caps, that the B & W's and the Paradigms would be bright, and that the Vandersteens would not be able to properly image because they don't have enough space in my listening room, but suspecting is not knowing!
Best Regards,
Lou
Edits: 11/19/14 11/19/14Follow Ups:
In your price range, the Philharmonic 3 is the best speaker that I know. A friend loaned me his cheaper Philharmonic 2s and they were the only speaker that could fool me into thinking that the music was real. I have heard most of the best speakers available at shows, but none quite reached that standard. Still shows aren't the best standard.
Bob
They look nice, the only concerns I would have would initially, are they bright, long term ribbon drivers have to be attended to more frequently than standard drivers. That said, they may well be worth it!
Best Regards,
Lou
The RAAL is the smoothest tweeter that I have ever heard. It doesn't roll off like some silk dome tweeters do though.
Bob
My Hiquphon is about 1DB down at 19, and close to 2DB down at 20K, but I don't think I can hear either so I don't think it really matters.
Best Regards,
Lou
Lou-
are you still shopping for speakers?
I'm pretty happy with the KEF's, why?
Best Regards,
Lou
Thanks Bob. I recently toasted a woofer, had I not I would not have been looking because I was quite content with my system. I found some Vandy 2CE Signatures at a good price, and decided to buy them and see if I could tweak them. The guy selling them had some KEF 105.2's which sounded a lot like my speakers but fuller. So, I bought a pair with blown woofers. I just recapped it by-passing any remotly significant caps with a combination of Teflon, I have 2 sources so I won't mention which I used as I would use either, I just had these on hand. To avoid excess Teflon, I used some Mundorfs as well. Even with just my subs and no woofers they sound nice. I think these will be the last full range speakers I'll buy, Unless I somehow become quite wealthy. The woofers should be back in a few weeks.
Best Regards,
Lou
Edits: 11/26/14 11/26/14
Lou;
I owned the Paradigm Studio Reference 100 v3 from 2003 to 2007 and they were anything but bright. I wish I still had them, but I have just so much space.
I do still have the little brother - The excellent Paradigm Studio Reference 40 v3. I have upgraded the crossovers with Jantzen caps and they sound great!
The Paradigm 100's are easy to drive and have a big (28hz @ -3db) powerful sound - No sub woofer required.
I had very good success driving them with a variety of amps ranging from the Hafler DH500 to a vintage Fisher 500c tube receiver. Hell, I even had a King Rex 2020 6 wpc chip amp hooked up to them just for shits and giggles.
If you can find a used pair of v3 100's for less than $1200 buy 'em.
I was a vegetarian for 15 minutes, until the main course.......Meat; It's the right thing to do. Romans 14:2
But then again, if I induldged in fantasy football, my team would be made up of all women.
Well, I have limited resources for this hobby. I really started this thinking it may help others by examining those lists, it might remind them of a speaker they had forgotten about or some such thing. It seemed like a fun helpful exercise where there was no right or wrong answer, I guess I was wrong...
Best Regards,
Lou
1. Yamaha NS-1000
2. JBL L-166
3. ADS L1230
4. Stacked Large Advents
....and if allowed five...
5. Snell CV
Once upon a time I worked in a shop that sold the Yamaha and the JBL. I preferred the Yamaha then and wonder if I still would today. I've owned the ADS L1230 and would love to find another pair. I've never heard stacked Advents, so would like to see what all the fuss was about. As for the Snell, its long been a favorite and I know it well enough to use as a barometer for how well I like (or dislike) the others.
Dean.
reelsmith's axiom: Its going to be used equipment when I sell it, so it may as well be used equipment when I buy it.
It's your list. :-) I just thought this might help folk looking widen their focus, or in some cases narrow it.
Best Regards,
Lou
I'' cheat and just list one new and one old speaker. When I 1st got into more exotic audio my dream speaker was the IMF Monitor Mk2. At about the same size comparing the IMF(with modern crossover parts) to the Wilson Alexia would be fun. They're similar sizes
As long as I have been around audio I have only heard of Freed's speakers, I've never actually heard a pair of any of his speakers.
Best Regards,
Lou
would fit into your parameters of a current dream speaker here.
Unrealistically, the TOL Reference 3A OR JM Reynaud would be the dream, along with the associated room and gear to house them...
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
1. Magnepan 20.7
2. King Sound KS 10
3. Sanders 10d
Yes, I prefer flat speakers...my current speakers are Magnepan 3.7i's with the Sanders Magtech Stereo Amp...(truly a match made in heaven)...
My current condo could not accommodate the 20.7's to do them justice...
thanks
Mark
1. Sterling BBC LS 3/6
2. Graham Audio BBC LS 5/9
3. Graham Audio BBC LS 5/8
4. Harbeth Monitor 30
5. Harbeth Super HL 5
My list for my set up in my house:
1) Revel Salon II
2) Kef 207 II
3) Magnepan 20.7
4) Wilson Sofia
5) Wilson Watt/Puppy 7
Add Wilson's newest speaker- Sabrina.
Old - Double Quads and coffin like subs combo that I heard at Victors Stereo in Chicago when I was young. Really involving.
vs
New - Focal Utopia Grande - I heard one of the Utopia models at the AXPONA show in Chicago. Played Alan Parsons Sirius from vinyl - Great.
Klipschorns (Volti wood horns and JBL 2404 Tweeters.
Altec Model 19's (plus upgraded crossover from GPA.
GPA 604-8H Series III in Stonehenge V cabinets. (these are coming)
Albert Von Schweikert's VR-7's.
All on casters please!
Hey Lou! Let me know how the KEF's cook out!
Chuck
Horns? You? ;-) What a shock! Let me know what you think of the latest batch of opamps, I did send some that suck just to keep it honest. :-) You know I'll keep you up to date on the KEFs. Some of the coils I need are back ordered, but I am going to recap the factory crossovers too, so the final verdict will be some time off.
Best Regards,
Lou
Gallo 3.5 refs, or instead the stand mount version they make with the upper section of the 3.5 mated with a pair of Gallo subs - facing forward please.
Zu Omen Def, or maybe the Soul
Golden Ear Titon towers (which replace Definitive Mythos on my list)
Vortex Acoustics (Von Schweikert) VR-33
Maggie 1.7's, just because...
Kef ???????? I dunno what, but something!
marc g. - audiophile by day, music lover by night
Lou-
nice list. The current Thiel CS 2.7/3.7 are the ones to audition and are my reference at this time. The only other speaker that interests me is the Verity line.
The cost of those is a bridge too far for me. I think I can get close, 85-95% for a lot less and alot of tweaking. I spendost of my toy money fishing these days. Boats are anything but inexpensive to maintain, and I own one and have half ownership in another for Lake Erie. So while I could afford them if I made it a priority, I'd have to give up fishing, retirement funding, a roof over my head or something! ;-)
Best Regards,
Lou
I worked for three different Stereo Shops as a young adult: Cal Stereo (a lot of BAD speakers + Design Acoustics, Dynaco, and JBL.); Stereo Town in Iowa (Advent, Bose, JBL); & Henry Radio (B&W, DCM, JBL, McIntosh, Advent, ADS, and others) Speaker shootouts were great - and easy because this was before the wires and cables make a big difference myth - so all of our receivers/amps could be routed through a switch panel (with level matching) which was my responsibility to calibrate. It was also pretty fun to have amplifier shootouts.
"The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat" - Confucius
Gonna completely agree, disagree, and say you're sometimes right.
How is that for specific???
Well, how is is that somebody can say that "X" wire/cable is the best - no matter how/where/what in the system it is employed?
Gonna say from experience: Cables/interconnects/speaker wires DO make a difference.
Gonna say another thing: IMPOSSIBLE (will repeat that) IMPOSSIBLE to say which cable/interconnect is the BEST, unless the entirety of the system involved is considered.
Price doesn't ensure a good match. Sometimes the old saw "You get what you pay for" is complete crap, and may well be balanced out with "A sucker is born every minute."
Some would also say that a system is only as strong as its weakest link - sometimes, you can spend an ungodly amount of money on a cable or wire, and THAT might now be your weakest link!
Our "rigs" are complex systems - often the key to making them perform better isn't simply throwing money at them - you truly need to do some work to see what is holding back your enjoyment. Maybe it IS a piece of wire, but in my 30+ years in the hobby, that wouldn't now be the first place I looked.
is usually your (or my) head. Provided the cables are transferring voltage variations, there is little mechanism or them to be non-linear in behavior. Non-linear means the output doesn't equal the input.Let's touch your synergy argument - some cables and some components just fit and sound better. However, I've only noticed variations in cables when playing music - never with other signals. Why is that? The equipment is the same - regardless of the signal. When you play music the brain (not the ears, not the air between the speakers) processes the neural information differently. It tries to imagine (or create) something real from signals that are perhaps quite contrived (by the recording process). This is where the synergy comes in - if the brain imagines a more convincing presentation - bingo - you have a winner.
This is not to say the synergy is not valid. quite the opposite, once you buy into the synergy argument (or the weakest link argument) then you have to venture into the realm of comparison to remedy your behavior.
If you have never read Heyser's Audio Magazine "Catastrophe Theory" articles you should try to find them.
Link here is another similar discussion (I did not take part in). you can review my comments in other posts on the AA however.
"The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat" - Confucius
Edits: 12/29/14
Level matching makes a lot of difference. I've caught salesmen trying to push a certain car speaker, for what ever reason, intentionally elevating the volume on a particular speaker when compared to anything else.
Best Regards,
Lou
Since you went with four, I'll stick to that. My four are:
(1) The new Gallo floorstander, whenever it's finally released,
(2) Refurbed Quad ESL-63,
(3) Magnepan 3.7, and
(4) Linwitz Lab LX521.
I should have included the Gallows I suppose but I have been out of the audio scene for the last few years and just heard about them so they didn't come toind. Quad 57's were my first high end speakers, but I couldn't get the volume out of them that I wanted so I traded them for Accoustst 3's. Anyway while I certainly agree that these are some nice speakers, there are no wrong answers here!
Best Regards,
Lou
I had Acoustat 1+1s back in the day. A bear to move when you're a 20-something moving a fair bit, and ultimately the panels went with no easy way to repair (within my means at the time) but in many ways they are still my holy grail of speakers.
Accustats have some very positive attributes, but I usually lack sufficient room to allow them to really sing.
Best Regards,
Lou
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