Best of all worlds??????????


I have been shopping for a speaker that suits my tastes. I thought I was down to 2 speakers, and I would have to decide between them, that being the b&w n804's or the sonus faber grand piano home's. I listen to the gp's with some grover washington, or cyrus chesnut, or some light classical music, it sounds warm and sweet, then I put on some stones, eric clapton, yes, etc, and it sounds like crap.....Ditto for the n804's... My problem is that I am tired of the old saying, that it depends on what kind of music do you listen to.... If you are spending 3000.00+ on a set of floor standing speakers, shouldn't there be an overall excellent speaker. What would be considered a speaker that sounds just as good listening to classical as it would listening to the stones.....Yes I know that rock music is mostly recorded like crap, and I do not want to change the way it sounds, I just want to enjoy it...Can this be done, has this been done.....Do you know a speaker that is excellent of for all kinds of music.....Is there a speaker that is excellent for all kinds of music... Help me, as I am losing my cool
nyrgrs60
You ask ".....shouldn't there be an overall excellent speaker."

No. There are many overall excellent speakers but not one. All are imperfect and selecting the one that matches your room, system and, most of all, your taste is the difficult part.
What's the rest of your gear? How is the listening room set up? Can't just throw up your hands and blame only the speakers. BTW, if you're looking for an "excellent overall speaker" at that price range, check out the Thiel 2.4 also.
Perhaps both speakers are revealing the poor recording quality of the stones, eric clapton, yes, etc. Not all CDs are created equal. Sting has always been one of my favorite artists, until I upgraded my system. Now all of his CDs sound overly compressed to me.

JD
I have the Nautilus 804's and they are wonderful speakers for Rock and Roll as well as everything else. The B&W however are very neutral. What is the rest of your setup and maybe I can make some suggestions. If you tell me Krell I will know the problem already
How were the speakers anchored to the floor. I just came from a demo of b&w matrix 804s with some DIY stands that really anchored them to the floor and they blew away my 803s like they were the biggest pieces of junk around.
Try adding a subwoofer to the mix. I never really enjoyed listening to rock music on my system until I added a subwoofer.
Grand Pianos had a nasty edge in the F-R at least at Tweeters.
B&W may be light on the bass and tweeter can be bright.
Really have to try different electronics - these speakers will just reveal what you feed them - noting basic tonality I mentioned.
ATC active 100's do it all but they are $15,000 - but they include 6 power amps with the speakers :-)
You might consider the Merlin Milleniums. Their neutral and extremely smoooooooth presentation, coupled with their relatively extended bass content (with the optional bass augmentation module) make all sorts of music exciting. They don't delve into the lowest bass notes, but provide a pretty good amount of kick from an orchestral bass drum or electric bass. You could get a nice used pair for about 3k.
My equipment consists of a plinius sa100 mk3 amp, a plinius m14 preamp, a classe .3 cd player (which I will upgrade next, but sounds pretty good) and jm reynaud twin mk3's. I don't think that it is the equipment, but I could take a guess that it is the recordings on the rock, classic rock music. Wow, sometimes I get so fed up, that I feel like going out and buy a 20 year old pair of scott, or klipsch speakers, with a sansui 9090 receiver just to enjoy the old rock music again...
Ye ask and ye shall receive

VMPS RM40 (winner of "Best of Show" HIGH END at last years CES.

It does it all and for a reasonable price (list is $4600 but I can tell you how to get closer to your price range)

All the best

John