+1 @david_ten
Correct. The speaker should be as transparent and neutral as possible. It is not possible to remove resonance or euphonic syrupy timbre once you have it. However, starting with a speaker that is clean and neutral at all dynamic levels across the entire frequency range and you can then begin tailor the sound with your favourite SS or tubes.
My recommendation is neutral and clean, accurate speakers with an excellent highly accurate powerful SS power amp and then add coloration to taste using TT cartridge, phono pre, preamp and or DAC.
For me the OP has it all backwards. I agree with David 100%. |
All the bbc design speakers have it in spades.
Amphion speakers have it too, although they have a different sound. |
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Why spend the dollars on a speaker when one can saturate and distort, delay, pitch shift, play with reverb, EQ, etc. to fatten up portions of a recording?
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I don't have a specific recommendation but I do think that the OP wants very high performance level. And the rest of the system, including recordings, should be up to this as well. $50k set-up for a medium size room ? At least. |
Sonus fader anything from Amati Futura and backwards. Vienna Acoustics.
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If I am imagining right what you have on your mind, Sonus Faber would fall into that category. |
+1 @mtrot different instruments will their produce their signature timbre at different frequencies. Is this not correct?
It seems to me that one should look to acquire speakers with the most accurate response over the widest frequency range. |
Well, to me there is a problem with this whole notion. I mean, different instruments will their produce their signature timbre at different frequencies. Is this not correct? Wouldn't a flute's timbre be reproduced at a higher frequency than a cello's?
If this is the case, then I'm not sure it's wise to go for speakers traditionally considered to have a "warm" sound, because that may entail being rolled off in the high frequencies, which might auger against the ability to accurately render the timber of a flute or piccolo.
It seems to me that one should look to acquire speakers with the most accurate response over the widest frequency range. Now, if one only listens to a certain type of music, say for example, chamber music, then it might be possible to pick a speaker based on it's abilities in the associated frequency range.
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Agree on the Tannoy Prestige series speakers.
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Yes the Joseph audio speakers I have heard at shows do provide a very clear window into the sound. Always a fave of mine at shows. Audio note also more along the lines described for Devore.
Ohm Walsh are also very good at not coloring the sound and just allowing whatever is naturally there to come through. |
If that's the case I can put away my Dynaudios and go back to my Cambridge Audio satellites/sub or my Realistic Minimus 7's...?
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Isn't correct/natural/realistic timbre (or as close to it one can get) a better target vs. 'richer'?
I'd rather see us consider: How do we build systems (yes, Systems) that get us close to 'nailing' timbre?
I believe this would be a more valuable and productive discussion vs. having another 'Type of Speaker List' thread.
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Mostly the sound will come form the source not the speakers, they only really reproduce what they are being feed. Yep some speakers can do this or that better but the source really IMO makes the sound. Happy Listening. |
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cd318, I find that Classical music and Jazz really become captivating when it’s easy to distinguish the sound of the instruments rather than just the notes they are playing. That describes exactly what the Joseph speakers are great at. Pretty much every review of the JA speakers (look up the Pulsar reviews) makes a point about how easily separate and distinct the timbral qualities of instruments remain, even as a mix gets more complex. You’ll see Michael Fremer describing that quality here: https://www.stereophile.com/content/joseph-audio-pulsar-loudspeakerOr from the absolute sound review: http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/joseph-audio-pulsar-tas-203/"The first thing I noticed about the Pulsars was their midrange purity and lack of grain."
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"Of all the Pulsar’s sonic attributes, the one that impressed me the most was the high level of discernability. What I mean by discernability is, how easy is it to listen into the mix and pick out exactly what parts you want to concentrate on? The higher the level of discernability, the easier it is to do this. The Pulsars made it easy to recognize the essential banjoness of a banjo on Paul Curreri’s “Once Up Upon a Rooftop” [California Tin Angel Records]. Even when a harmonica is added to the mix, it’s easy to tell where the banjo stops and the harmonica starts." I found this particularly intriguing when I played various mono recordings on the Joseph speakers - Chet Baker, etc. When you have various voices and instruments "lining up" behind one another in the center, rather than spread out discernibly in the soundstage in stereo, a less pure-sounding speaker can make it harder to untangle one instrument from another. But on the Joseph speakers it seemed every instrument was effortlessly separate timbrally, making it more realistic and "easier" to listen to one particular instrument over another even in a really tight mono mix. |
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Brilliant responses, really impressed. Audio Note (Hemp?), Harbeth and DeVore are names that often come up. Joseph Audio sounds like one to watch out for. Tannoy, I'm quite familiar with.
By rich timbre I guess I mean that you can clearly hear the harmonics in a voice or in an instrument as as you can hear the pitch, loudness or edge detail. Many speakers can do the start of a note well but not it's body - all attack and little decay. All frequencies of sound including Bass can have beautiful harmonics (I find that the ones around 4-8kHz can be particularly delightful).
Perhaps it's not strictly accuracy I'm after - I'd much sooner have exaggerated tonal colour than slightly muted. For some like me it serves as a drug when it comes to listening. Of all the critiques trying to explain the lasting popularity of the Beatles music, the best ones for me focus on their diverse use of timbre and tonal colour. Compared to many who followed their recordings (admittedly in an age of analogue recording and valve/ tube desks) do seem to exhibit 'a greater "rainbow" of timbres and tonal colors' especially from Rubber Soul onwards.
I find that Classical music and Jazz really become captivating when it's easy to distinguish the sound of the instruments rather than just the notes they are playing. Wood sounds like wood, metal has it's natural sheen, wind instruments sound different again. Piano can either sound plain and two dimensional, or it comes alive as you get to hear all the tones and micro tones. A real sense of someone at work.
Tonal colour is not merely edge detail, it's infinitely more than that. Plenty of speakers can do leading edge detail well, and seem lightning fast whilst they do it, but few seem to handle the body and decay of the notes as well.
It is difficult to speak about tonal colour without also speaking about warmth, especially in the midrange (Bose anybody?), but I don't think it's necessarily dependent upon warmth. It's just that cold sounding systems can often expose their monochromatic nature far more readily.
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Legacy Audio. They tend to make more recordings listenable, don’t break the bank, and surely fall into the rich sound camp of speakers. |
Depends what exactly you are looking for when you want Rich Timbre.
To some richness evokes a fullness of tone, where you really feel for instance the weight and presence of a tenor sax in the bottom registers or whatever, that may be thinned out in other speakers.
It that is what you mean by timbral richness, I'd throw the Devore Fidelity 0/96 and /93 have in that camp. That's their specialty. Big, Rich, Thick full sound, so you feel that a piano or acoustic guitar has a vibrating sounding board, low strings vibrate the air, voices have a "chest" projection and not just disembodied mouths.
On the other hand my you mean something more like Timbral accuracy, in the sense of bringing out the specific timbral characteristic or tonal color of voices and instruments - e.g. that a brass cymbal really sounds like brass, a struck triangle silvery, a trumpet warm resonating metal, the special combination of reedy/breathy/bell of a saxophone, wood sounds like wood, etc.
I've always looked for "Technicolor Sound" in the sense of a speaker producing a wider array of timbral colors, because through most speakers I immediately hear a homogenization, an imprint put over everything by the speaker. Once I hear a sax, or trumpet, or cymbals on a speaker it's not long before I pretty much know what those will tend to sound like forever more on that speaker - unlike the truly endless element of "surprise" found in real life in that regard.
In that case, among the best I've ever encountered are the Joseph Audio speakers. They are very accurate but with a particularly grain/haze-free sound. Just the way colorful pebbles are more richly revealed through a clean, clear stream than through one full of fine silt, I find the timbral colors of voices and instruments seem more finely and purely revealed from the JA speakers - a greater "rainbow" of timbres and tonal colors seem to get through. At least that's what I hear, though that seems to be echoed by a great many other people who hear them as well.
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Sound is not in technicolor. But it sounds like you are looking for warmer speakers. Harbeths are good for that. Too many audiophiles assemble systems lacking in midbass warmth and then complain about it later. |
Daedalus Audio
the entire line
solid wood speakers and very natural and engaging |
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I know what timbre means but what is the "rich" timbre you are looking for? |
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