Check out Salk Exoctic monitors. Those Seas drivers are incredible. $5999.00
"Best" mini-monitor?
I have a relatively small listening room (12x10) and have always owned mini-monitors. Currently I have proac tablette anniversaries, but have had the original 15 ohm rogers ls3/5a, proac response 1, KEF, and reference 3a through out the years. As you can see, these are all moderate priced speakers, having never spent more than 3k on any pair. I am now in a position to spend a bit more money, certainly 5k, and maybe up to 10k. So what out there should I be listening to? I am in the Chicago area, so I would love something that I can listen to at a local (Midwest) dealer, but I do travel a lot and have auditioned/purchased things across the country from time to time. New or used, does not matter to me.
as you can probably guess, I really don't care much about deep base, but live for soundstage and warm midrange, listening to a lot of female vocalists, acoustic rock/jazz/blues, and light (non full orchestra) classical.
With my musical tastes, I have always loved el34 tube amps. I currently have the prima Luna hp premium, which has 4 el34 per channel, giving me in the 70 wpc range, more than enough for a small room. I am running naim digital source material (no bad remarks from the analog folks... I know I have have traded off).
so, what should I spend time auditioning? I have used "best" in quotes because of the 10k price limit, but I suspect there are many more candidates below 10k than above it.
thanks.
Bill
as you can probably guess, I really don't care much about deep base, but live for soundstage and warm midrange, listening to a lot of female vocalists, acoustic rock/jazz/blues, and light (non full orchestra) classical.
With my musical tastes, I have always loved el34 tube amps. I currently have the prima Luna hp premium, which has 4 el34 per channel, giving me in the 70 wpc range, more than enough for a small room. I am running naim digital source material (no bad remarks from the analog folks... I know I have have traded off).
so, what should I spend time auditioning? I have used "best" in quotes because of the 10k price limit, but I suspect there are many more candidates below 10k than above it.
thanks.
Bill
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- 45 posts total
I have a similar sized room and similar musical preferences, and also have a 70 watt tube amp, an EAR 890. I have been through a lot of speakers over the years - Dynaudio C1s, Proac D2s, Tablette signatures and 1.8s, Sonus Fabers Cremonas, Spendor S3/5Rs and 2/3s, and various others. My search stopped with Harbeth - first P3ESR and then M30.1s. Both are good, but the M30.1s are perfect in a small room at low to medium volumes, with a rich, warm and detailed sound, without ever sounding analytical or harsh. |
I used to have a similar size room (10.5' X 12.16') that had a primary room mode of 46 Hz. I had the best results with speakers that started to roll off before 46 Hz for a more even frequency response. Speakers like the Audio Note AN/J that I owned for 15 years and liked very much in a larger room were just too boomy in the bass in that room. In the Audio Note line the AN/K would be a much better choice. I really liked the results with the Spendor S3/5 speakers in that small room. They had a well proportioned presentation, but lacked the dynamics of the Audio Note speakers. Personally I would be interested in trying the Trenner & Friedl Art Speakers in a room that size. I haven't heard them, but I suspect that they would be a good match for the room. There's a nice user review of them at https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/trenner-friedl-the-little-speaker-that-could |
- 45 posts total