I will try to locate the CAR speakers. How might they compare to Tannoy Churchills, TAD TSM-300, Pioneer 2251, and Tannoy Exclusive (??..can't remember exact name, they were 2 huge corner speakers with massive woofers).
In a system with expensive Cello preamp/amp and Burmester 001 CD, I found the Churchlls to have sweetest and detailed voice reproduction, but extremely lacking in detail below lower midrange. The other Tannoy had great bass, but lacked treble detail, using I believe Chord amplification and Esoteric CD. The TAD and Pioneer units sounded OK, but didn't have the class of sound I wanted, in terms of transparency, harmonic texture, openness/airiness. They were both much lower budget speakers, however.
I heard a vintage Wharfedale speakers with Mcintosh pre/pro (240), and it sounded phenomenal, musically completely spot-on and involving. They were asking US$1000 for the speaker and over US$8000 for the pre/pro set. There was no model number on the speakers, and I had no idea if they were a good buy or not...I saw with regret today that they were sold. Was the secret in the amps or speakers? Why couldn't that sound come out of the Tannoys or Pioneers? I didn't do extended or critical listening of the Wharfedales, I assume they wouldn't hold a candle to the others along most audiophile measurements.
If I can't locate more speakers in Hong Kong, I may consider purchasing unheard, online. I worry now from experiences like these, however, that I am a very subjective listener, and even a highly recommended speaker of the right type (i.e. musically revealing, transparent, high sensitivity, possibly horns or Lowther single or multidriver box) wouldn't quite get it right for me. I hope I'm not that subjective in a picky way, just have rigorous criteria.
I came across a product called "zero" in a agon forum, which seems to make it possible to use low sensitivity speakers such as the Eggleston Works Savoy with low or medium power tube amps. Would this be a possible solution to expanding my options? Would I get full performance from such speakers, compared to SS? Are there any compromises, other than lower maximum SPL? |
Audiokinesis, I'm not sure I can describe what I'm looking for exactly, but my reasons for going for a tube amp over SS is that I prefer sweet, warm vocals and midrange over the ultimate in clarity/transparency. Having said that, I wish my current system had better soundstaging and overall detail (it sounds muddy now). The general tonal balance is there, but not nearly as refined as what I heard in the store (which sounded perfect enough to me that any desire for a particular sonic quality was just icing on the cake, as oppposed to a necessity as I feel now). Right now I feel not enough of the sweet sound is coming through.
I have a set of Feet of Silence, which improves the sound clarity remarkably under both my Levinson CD player and preamp. I only have one set, but plan to get an isolation rack. I didn't get one before, since I'm new to audio and wasn't convinced in isolation until I experimented with the Feet of Silence. I may even be convinced that isolating all my equipment would solve my problem..
As for the English, I'm Canadian-Chinese :-)
I'm going to Hong Kong next week, where many speaker brands are sold, that's why I'm hoping to get a list of candidates. I'll definitely check out the AvantGardes, Coincidents, and Acapella. I'll also listen to the Maggies, since I hear a lot about them on this site, even though they may not be right for my present situation.
Speaker size, appearance, and weight is somewhat important to me. I like the Coincident Total Victories for their slim size, and some of the Acapellas look stylish. The AvantGarde Duos' appearance may be an issue, however, especially the bottom half and the side pillars. I guess if they were only marginally better sounding than a great looking and space-economical speaker, I may choose the better looking ones.
Any further recommendations would be greatly welcome. |
Thanks for the responses so far. My amps are 20 watts per monoblock. My living room is actually about 17 x 35 feet, but through sofa placements I only use about half the room, or 17 x 20 feet or so.
Teajay, my preamp/amp combination retails for about 35K (luckily i got used for much less than half), would the Magnepans be a good match just from a budgetary point of view? (10:1 value ratio of amplification to speakers) |
I am considering used Acapellas or Kharmas, but have some concern about their power requirements.
The Acapella website lists 25 watts as minimum recommended power for the Violon, while my amps put out only 20 watts.
From the low sensitivity (89db) and high power handling specs on the Kharma website, I get the impression that they all require large wattage- however, a pair of Kharma (Ceramique 3.2s?) were reportedly driven by 18 watt Lamm L2 amps at a CES show (conflicting reports stated L2 and L1 amps, however). And a magazine reviewer stated the L2s would work well with "high efficiency speakers such as the Avantgarde Trio, the Nearfield Acoustics Pipedreams, the Wilson X1 or X2, or virtually any Kharma."
Any help on this? |
Sorry about responding late to my own thread. I thought this thread had ended a while ago! And I still haven't found my speaker, despite tons of auditioning over the last number of weeks.
I have heard the Avantgardes Unos several times now, but only with solid state electronics. Audiojoy, I agree with what you said about their harshness, lack of bass, and unnatural tonality. Did you listen to them with tubes? Would that make a big difference? I really wanted to like these speakers, as well as the Acapellas. I heard the High Violin and the LaCampaniles, both with SS, and also found them harsh and overly analytical. Other horn speakers I have listened to include Odeon, Tannoy, and TAD/Pioneer. I found the Tannoy Churchill and Pioneer horn speakers the most musical and integrated, but the Churchills lacked bass detail and the Pioneers lacked a degree of transparency across the board.
I seem to be bumping up against a problem of detail/tranparency/immediacy versus musicality/listenability/tone/integration.
My favorite speakers so far, price aside, are the Wilson Alexandrias and Eggleston Works Savoy. These are the only speakers which have really 'wowed' me and let me consistently forget about judging them due to enrapture by music during auditioning. With the right electronics, I've also liked Kharma speakers, though I think they noticeably lack detail (after my first audition of the Midi Exquisites I listened to Rockport Antares, which were far more accurate. during my second audition of 3.2 and 2.0, the dealer himself did a demonstration with european folk music showing how an entire stringed instrument was muffled by both Kharmas, and rendered in full detail by a pair of German Physiks speakers). I also really liked the sound of a vintage pair of Wharfedales driven by McIntosh tubes, but wasn't allowed an extensive audition.
Since all of these speakers are over US$20,000 new, I may either abandon my speaker search for now (until I audition more speakers, or find the above at a used price), or change my budget. The Savoy would also require me to change amps.
My ideal speaker would have:
1) immediacy and transparency of high-quality horns, or a custom-built single driver Lowther I heard (but without compromised bass and musicality issues)
2) tonal balance and harmonic complexity of Alexandrias and Savoy (but without huge expense and/or need for huge power)
3) liquidity and listenability of higher-end Kharmas (but with more accuracy and transparency)
4) musicality and flavor of vintage horn and other older speakers (but without problems of detail, muddiness, soundstaging)
Please keep in mind I am new to audio and these are my personal impressions, I don't mean to offend anyone with any comments. I just hope to get useful advice from people out there.
Dseid, sorry about taking so long to get back to you. Some terrific recommendations for indian or flamenco music you could check out include:
Ravi Shankar (Indian sitar)
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Sufi vocals)
Prahlad Brahmachari (Bengali Baul music)
L. Subramanium (Indian violin)
Paco de Lucia (modern flamenco guitarist)
Camaron de la Isla (flamenco singer)
Manolo Caracol (flamenco singer)
La Nina de los Peines (flamenco singer)
Carmen Linares (flamenco singer)
Radio Tarifa (moroccan/flamenco fusion)
In general, I think Peter Gabriel's Real World Label is a good starting part to expand into world music. There is also a Rough Guide to World Music.
some random world music I like include:
Wu Jing Lue (chinese qin)
Han Hong (tibetan singer)
Zhou xuan (shanghainese singer)
Zap Mama (kind of R&B actually)
Manu Dibango (african jazz)
Teresa Teng (taiwanese pop)
Toto La Momposina (colombian/cuban fusion)
Alberto Pacheco (colombia cumbia)
Amalia Rodrigues (portuguese fado)
Cesaria Evora (african singer in creole)
Ladysmith Black Mambazo (south africa)
Angelique Kidjo (african pop)
Caetano Veloso (brazilian pop)
Ruben Gonzalez (cuban jazz piano)
Paquita de la Barrio (mexican singer)
Julio Preciado (mexican singer)
Astor Piazolla (modern tango)
I also recommend googling "world music" and sampling music online, or even taking risks by ordering highly recommended CDs. There is so much great world music out there (after all, music from most of the world's cultures would fall under this one category). One thing often leads to another, and it is exciting to stumble across hidden genre gems, such as Malagasy guitar music, South African township gospel, Sundanese gamelan music, etc. I have a weakness for cheesy female mandopop, but don't dare make any such recommendations on this audiophile site :-)
I stopped listening to music for the last few years :-( so I can't give you a more extensive list off the top of my head..my CD collection is not with me, and I've forgetten lots of names of what I used to listen to. This is one of the reasons I want to get a really nice system now, to bring music back into my life. Feel free to ask if you need more information, however.
My current potential shortlist for future auditioning include: Carfrae horns, TAD 2404, Coincident Total Victory II, Green Mountain Audio, Merlin, DeVore, Von Schweikert, and a few others...it will take me considerable effort to find these. For auditioning purposes, I would consider speakers of any cost, I am happy now even to know which speakers exist that I can dream of. |
Boa2,
I auditioned many of the speakers exclusively with a tube pre/pro combo (e.g. Thiel, TAD, Mosquito, custom-built Lowther, Marten design), and many with both tubes and SS (e.g. Odeon,Watt/Puppy,Kharma,Goldmund, JMLabs, Verity Audio, Sonus Faber, Tannoy, ProAc, MBL, Martin Logan, B&W, Mission, ATC, etc.). In most of these cases, changing from SS to tubes helped but not decisively. In cases where this wasn't possible (usually either the dealer didn't have tubes on hand, or I wanted to check out speakers which require high power) (e.g. Avalon, Dynaudio, Wilson Benesch, Linn, Magellan, German Physiks, Revel, Aerial, Naim, Magnepans, Triangle, PMC, Focus audio, Rockport [hybrid amp], Acapella, Avantgarde etc.), I had to use solid state.
In the case of the Avantgardes, I had to go back several times since the dealer kept promising to hook them up to a pair of push-pull CAT JL2 amps, but each time there was a problem with the amps. That is why I still want to give the Avantgardes a chance, and why I asked on this forum whether anyone has heard gross differences on them when using SS vs tube on them.
I was already aware of the differences beween SS and tube amps, and kept this in mind when using SS amplification- only where a speaker's basic 'character' wasn't close to what I was looking for would I write it off in these cases. Room size and acoustics, digital sources, interconnects, etc. also all varied from place to place, but my strategy has been to audition speakers and consider further those that fall within the ballpark of my tastes. In the many cases where I used both SS and tube amps. I found that changing to tube amps would usually improve, sometimes surprisingly, my assessment of the sound, but not fundamentally change the character of the speaker. If I'm wrong on this last point, I would appreciate any suggestions to reaudition any of the above speakers I auditioned recently. I actually found that changing the CD player or pre-amp (e.g. even with a single type) made as much or more of a difference in many cases. I made changes somewhere in the source component chain where I 'felt' a speaker was far from reaching its potential in at least one way. If I felt a speaker was expressing its true potential in some way (I expect a speaker can have several or many kinds of potential expression) but I wasn't moved at all, then I took it off my shortlist.
I appreciate your suggestion, Boa2, if you still think I need to reconsider my strategy or go back and give any or all speakers a re-listen, I would not be offended by further advice. As you can see, I've been a bit obsessed by all this speaker auditioning recently, and still haven't settled on a single speaker. My quest has led me to feel speakers should be chosen before amplification. Much of this auditioning has also served to help me develop and focus my own subjective tastes and requirements, so definitely I don't feel all my time has been wasted. I think a great part of the reason I've had to audition so extensively was to understand my own tastes, and because my expectation of the high-end was higher than what I have encountered.
My priorities, in general order, seem to be: large scale of sound, tonal richness/balance/texture/musicality, transparency/detail, liquid/smooth midrange, bass extension, soundstaging. I expect the speakers I purchase, given the right source, could do most of the above superlatively whether using SS or tubes, although probably better with tubes. Is this expectation unrealistic? I would be willing to switch amps if necessary, but would prefer to wait until auditioning more speakers. The Alexandrias did it for with me with tubes, the Savoys did it with SS. Kharmas have come close with SS.
To follow your suggestion, Boa2, I guess I would go back through the list of speakers I tested with SS amps, and determine which deserve a careful re-audition with SET tubes. From that list, Avantgarde was on my reaudition list because it has been highly recommended, and because it is made for low power. I thought Focus audio and Magnepans were the most sonically pleasing to me, but was told these wouldn't be driven well with low-powered tubes. I would rather wait for future auditioning opportunities with new speakers at this point, than do something drastic like change my amp. |
I finally heard the Avantgarde Unos yesterday (although I was only given a very rushed 15 minutes), since the dealer was accomodating enough to borrow a Jadis DA50 integrated tube amp from the store upstairs. Wow, what a difference! The first note brought a smile to my face. The harshness and edginess was replaced by a warm Jadis glow, in fact I would say the sound was too warm, as I've found before with lower end Jadis designs. As I hoped, these highly sensitive horns speakers seem to reflect their source more than many box speakers I've come across. I can only imagine how much better a sound my Jadis separates would produce. They also used a very inexpensive CD player.
I'm hooked on the possibility of horns now. Compared to the Alexandrias, Ivy, and Kharma speakers, and probably all the other box speakers I heard, I can make out more instrumental details and feel closer to the music. I hope that having the appropriate mix of source components can minimize or eliminate any possibility of harshness.
However, the physical size and appearance of the Avantgardes I find very imposing and unappealing and slightly impractical. I think the bass integration is somewhat of an issue as well, although that may be a necessary compromise. There is still something about their sound that is not as 'comfortable' as my favorite box speakers, but I could attribute this to listening habit and unfamiliarity more than anything.
Boa2 has flagged a possible warning about tonal richness and complexity. I suspect tonal richness could be provided by the source, while I haven't reached a conclusion about tonal complexity, which is one of the reasons I like the Alexandria and Ivy so much. However, the ability of the Avantgardes to resolve find detail, including previously obscure lines of instrumentation, may mean this might not be a big concern. I also like speakers to have what I call, perhaps wrongly, richess of harmonic overtone/instrumental resonance, but wonder whether how much of this is often an exaggeration of hifi systems.
I guess the Avantgardes go on my shortlist. I hope to compile a longer list of potential audition candidates, but any further research is going to cost me considerable time and effort. I am considering just settling on a speaker now, despite there probably being better and more suitable choices lurking out there, and just enjoying music and developing my musical and 'audiophile' appreciation for a better selection process down the road.
Boa2, your comment about my budget is well-taken. I originally thought that my stated budget range ought to take care of it for me. I guess I would spend up to about 30K now, and would like to buy used, so would probably consider speakers up to around the 60K new retail mark.
I guess I could restart a new thread with a better title (e.g. best 10-60K speakers for high-end tube amp), but would this cause more confusion than clarity? I should also state that I would consider trading in my amps for higher power tubes if necessary.
My future audition list, should I continue, now contains:
Beauhorn
Zingali
Von Schweikert
Merlin
DeVore Fidelity
FAB model one
Verity Audio Sarastro
Coincident Total Victory II
Carfrae
Would any of these speakers match or exceed the qualities I found in the Avantgardes? |
Thanks for the encouragement-- I stayed up the whole night doing my speaker research, armed with my auditioning experience of the last few weeks. I also think I can put together a great system well within that budget.
I couldn't find "skuhino" using member lookup or searching in Virtual Systems. |
Is the converse true? I don't find the Wilson WP sound is giving me the lens into music that I'm looking for - too hifi sounding. |
I just found the speakers for my system- a pair of $500 ELOD floorstanders that I had retired for surround duty when I got my B&W804s.
After upgrading most of my front-end (top-end tubes everywhere, good cabling, power conditioning, isolation), I started to get much better sound from my 804s, including noticeable bass extension and clarity, midrange smoothness, detail, etc., but they were still far from what I expect from my system. I've auditioned dozens of speakers in every price category (from 2k-40k) over the last month, but hadn't found my perfect speaker yet. I was desperate enough today to order a high-sensitivity box or horn speaker online without auditioning, when I figured I should try my old speakers I've had for 5 years.
Wow! My sound system came to life. The Elods completely outclasses the 804s with my tube amps, and the overall sound is on par or better than most of the high-end systems I've been listening to, including many with 20k to 30k speakers. I'm convinced with proper placement and room treatment, soundstaging and other 'audiophile' qualities would improve, but right now the musicality and sweetness of sound is amazing.
Talk about source first. I'm pumping about $60,000 of front-end into $500 speakers.
I just discovered this an hour ago, so I haven't tinkered with the front-end to see where the responsibility lies. So far I switched out the Kondo silver cabling, and the magic disappeared. These are absolutely amazing speaker cables, btw. I A/B'ed them against its smaller sibling which only uses half the silver wiring, and still extremely expensive. I was fully expecting to buy the 'cheaper' one, but the sound quality was at least double, proportionally in line with the price (I figure in audio if you're ever on the linear part of the quality/expensive curve, that's a good deal).
I wonder what even a 2-3k high-sensitivity speaker would sound like in my system. Perhaps these ELODs are just sensitive enough to get out of the way and let me Jadis do its thing, I haven't checked their specs. In any case, I definitely recommend against using B&Ws with low-powered tube amps, as I've seen people recommend. Anyways, I'm happy with the sound finally, and might wait until CES 2006 before making a more informed speaker upgrade than I was just about to do!
Unless I get the upgrade bug earlier...:-) |
That's a great suggestion. I can't access your site from China (geocities is censored) on this computer, but I'll check it out soon.
I don't wanna put a lot of time into it though, this recent 'hifi obsession' is dominating all my free time now, seriously eating into other priorities..
I'm surprised those cables wouldn't still be useful. I guess you mean that with sensitive speakers, it wouldn't matter so much if the speaker cable degraded the source signal?
I've been experimenting madly with power cords on my CD player and preamp, and find they make a remarkable difference. I know there's huge debates about impact of power cords, and this is my first experience A/Bing them, and I find it hard to imagine people wouldn't notice the difference given a revealing enough system. My Isoclean Focus cables are practically unlistenable they compress the sound so much (maybe i shouldn't have said that, now i plan to hawk them on audiogon :-)...ok, we could say they add a certain rough texture/flavor to the sound, which actually sounds better on some instrumentation through exaggeration..plus synergy counts right?), I'm so glad I got these Siltech G6 cables on a risk, they really open up the sound. I've discovered now that without them, along with the Kondo speaker cables, my system doesn't have its magic.
btw, i think i'm gonna change my username, not that i'm hiding anything. i wanted to change it a while ago, but had all these threads going. since i might start transacting on audiogon, i don't wanna get stuck with a username i don't like...it's plainly obvious i'm an audio slouch compared to everyone around here... |
