OP says "Of all the speakers I have heard (which are not many)...."
For that much outlay, unless that is a small amount for you, is there any way you can go out to do more listening?
RMAF is coming up.....
Before you go, if you could find some unamplified concerts (orchestral, chamber, jazz with no PA, which can be found in small venues, friends who play instruments) so you can get a dose, a good dose, of the real thing sitting in your short term memory? |
Yes yes on the suggestion of Tannoys. Get the real deal, a speaker that will stay with you for decades and be supportable for decades. But, if you go with the Orangs, nice speaker.
Don't go for the Zu's....how can these guys stand the high distortion/harshness from these? I know of several people who had to get out of them after a few years due to fatigue, and I have direct experience. They get reeled in by dynamics and and driven away due to harshness. You never hear that about Orangs or Tannoys. |
Hi Larry,
Not surprised we agree....those traits are there, if folks want to ignore them, fine, but they ignore the reality.
Re: Kensigntons, they have a small degree of raspiness, but so much less than Zus....and so can the Orangutans. SETs help, but this is a coverup and like all coverups, not completely effective.
For no rasp Tannoy performance one must go to the pepperpot waveguide, which is on the Prestige series.
He seems to want DeVores, guessing he'll go there. That's not a mistake speaker, and they do not gloss so many things over like the Harbeths....which are pleasurable, but we have to be truthful and say that the honey is due to nice colorations and forgiving some of the real detail and bite of some instruments. To me, far better than harsh gritty speakers that over emphasize things yet seem so popular. |
Thanks Charles. We agree. Two to three hours a day I hear myself play, as well as record myself and play it through my system. You need to keep the ears/brain educated. One can improve pitch through practice. A player can improve musical phrase recognition through practice. Likewise, a listener can improve the skills of listening through practice, but not by listening to stereos, but rather real music.
And yes, we agree about Coincident. I don't know if he's brilliant, smart, average, if he has taken technical courses, but he just has to be a good listener. His exhibits sound much more like music than the vast majority. I know of two current HOT brands that could only dream about lower levels of distortion like Coincident achieves. |
Sorry Charles, about the typo of lower case "C" on our name. |
ESSrand, I just wrote a long response that could seem, by its length, to be too hard on Harbeth. They are nice, just a bit forgiving is all, and that can get old....music is more stimulating than they portray. That's one of the better faults to have for sure, but the amount you are spending can get something pretty "easy" sounding yet more musically insightful.
Two important descriptors for me are "low distortion" (which precludes ringing tweeters, grainy midranges, 2 all too common faults of "hi-rez" speakers) and "musically insightful". The latter forgiving requires more information, more subtle detail, more instrumental (or vocal) detail than "glossed over" speakers deliver. |
Nearfield is REALLY close, I would call 8 feet or further a relatively normal position. I can listen to my current system from 18 feet away to 4 feet away with pinpoint imaging at the 4 foot position, realism like you are up against the stage. The proper design speaker, with great coherency, can do this and I own several that will, including some pretty gigantic speakers that will play 125db. This 4 foot position is possible with the speakers 12 feet apart center to center. The key is a very coherent signal from upstream components, as well as really well designed speakers. Toe in will have to be adjusted for close distances.
As for Harbeths wearing off, I should qualify this statement: Anyone attending regular concerts and wanting a very true rendition of the instruments at home can find the sound getting old after a while. The true bite of a trumpet, the tougher complex harmonics of a muted trumpet, saxes from sop to baritone, the differentiation of different cymbals and high hat, sizzle of the high hat, these sounds are rounded by Harbeths and they are certainly not alone in that regard. It's a stylized sound. It can be very pleasant. It's what I call a little impressionistic. Nothing wrong with impressionism, but don't tell me a Money Water Lilly drawing is an exact reproduction of the look of water lillies....and the Harbeths are a bit impressionistic.
With many brands and models of associated equipment that are a bit harsh or rough, this "bridging over" of transients is a plus. Unfortunately, such band-aid mixing and matching true detail suffers at each piece of equipment in the chain. With the best, most neutral sources and equipment, it's not needed (the softness), and it will just cover over true musical detail. |
Thank you for a considered, quality response, Tubegroover.
For me, the art was in the instrument design and evolution, the music writer, and the player. I want to feel and understand that combination of art and great human achievement as fully as possible....without distorting or changing it. I cannot, for instance, understand someone who would take a photograph of a Van Gogh and then photoshopping it, changing the texture, and darkening / lightening some sections of the work. Neither can I understand the same thing done to genius level performances of genius level music. I demand no less, and my customers deserve no less. Any change is distortion. |
"Anyone attending regular concerts and wanting a very true rendition of the instruments at home can find the sound getting old after a while."
That quote of mine refers to the sound coming from a coloured transducer, in this case, the pleasant but coloured Harbeth. |
Mapman, photography with a current $500 camera is a LOT better than nearly all high end systems.
I think you are mixing metaphors....mixing apples and oranges....the performance and orginal compositions/scores/melodies is the art in audio. Do we really want to change and sully that art? I certainly don't. And I've never seen a colored up version strike the hearts of listeners than a very literal version. Consistently, I see listeners get far more pleasure from very literal recovery from the record, as opposed to colored up versions. |
Oh Mapman, you are goading me now with that type of crazy subject!
It really is harder to get good sound than good still images. The still images are static: no transients! Easy! And judging it is easy....it's static!
Movies are just series of stills....the static gets repeated every so often.
Not so simple with the ear, whose bandwidth is high, that is extremely time sensitive (so phase distortion shows greatly), and which no single transducer can effectively satisfy.
Consider this: the ear/brain system is 10 octaves wide!!!!
They eye is less than one octave wide in its frequency spectrum! Ouch, that ear is hard to satisfy.
As for "beef" in high end audio, there is little beef. Lots of guys saying they are from Bell Labs (tall tale from that guy), NASA (almost all of those but one that I know are false), NSA scientist (bogus).....so you are right, lots of experimenting, only a few that have real scientific / physics / engineering chops. The job is harder, the market smaller.
A lot of substance and good points from several folks in this thread, far more than in most.
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Hi,
Am octave is just a doubling of frequency. The ear can pick up a span of TEN of those doublings! The eye: only a bit less than one doubling. Color perception is a frequency based phenomenon, just as sound is frequency based. Eyes pick up an electromagnetic wave, ears pick up a mechanical wave. But look how much wider the range of our perception is with sound! |
