Can you give me your speaker suggestions?


Currently looking for new speakers as I have grown tired with mine, I would greatly appreciate any suggestions that you think would fit my needs!

I had a pair of heresy iii speakers and loved the sound from 600hz and up but felt pretty much everything below that was thin sounding with no weight. I built a bigger ported cabinet for the drivers and it made a decent improvement from say 40-90hz ish but I still needed a subwoofer. 100-400hz still sounded thin, drums lack that punch and impact and male vocals lack weight and presence. 

Basically I am looking for a speaker that gives you the "musicians are in the room" feeling that the heresy gives me but deliver more in the lower midrange/upper bass area. 

I listen to jazz, femal/male vocals, 70's rock, 80' pop etc.. across all genres the heresy is equally good and equally bad (no matter what genre it feels like the 100-400hz area is sucked out of the room).. speaking of the room im in a 15foot by 22 foot room (its an L shape, half way down the 22 foot wall extends another 22 feet about 550sqft total). not an ideal room but its the only place I have. 

I am using a prima luna prologue premium with 37ish watt/channel, I currently purchased a Pathos logos mk ii with 110wpc into 8, and immediately noticed my main area of concern sounded even thinner, the more powerful hybrid amp sounds less powerful, less meat on the bones if that makes sense. when I get new speakers, I will sell one of the amps. 

my current budget is around $4-6K USD, I would consider purchasing used, or even a diy kit. 

the sonetto V reviews seem to tell me they will fit my needs, does anyone have any thoughts? 

thank you in advanced!! 

128x128palutena

Showing 7 responses by palutena

thank you every for taking the time to reply! 

the Cornwalls I feel would be perfect, other than space, even though its a decent size listening area, its a shared room and unfortunately cant have that big of a foot print at leas for the time being. 

you all have peaked my interest on dynaudio, elysian 2's, and B&W, ill definitely have to make a trip to the closest dealers (about 2 hours away) and report back when I get a chance to hear them (hopefully this weekend or next) 

im also playing with the idea of selling both of my amps, and getting a one of the 70ish wpm PrimaLuna amps (either the current evo 400, or the older dialogue premium hp) perhaps this is the best solution for me for the tube sound I like and more power I will likely need. 

@captaindidactic I will look into those, I have no problem going the diy route, I’ve watched some of his videos on YouTube and he seems to know what he’s doing.

 

update:

I got my hands on a eq and had to boost the the 200hz range 4-6db to find a satisfying level. some people have told me it might be a room problem or a source problem because I shouldn’t have to boost it that much in order to find it satisfying.

out of curiosity I dusted off a 20 year old psb bookshelf speaker that my dad had in storage (6ohm 88db). immediately the range I was missing was there, more weight and punch out of a 6 inch two way with the same source and both my amps ran them with no problem. of course with these speakers Im missing the open midrange range and upper frequencies, im missing the way acoustics guitars, vocals and horns just seem to flow out so effortlessly as they do with the heresys. and of course the same sense of scale was not there with the bookshelf. but it was nice to know it seems to not be a room or source issue, and so I will continue the hunt for new speakers.

 

@auroravengeance I actually love how these bookshelves imaged today, but I think I would miss that sense of scale that I seem to hear with the floor standers ive heard so im pretty sold on a floor stander or at least a big bookshelf type. 

 

@knighttodd thank you for pointing me to this company, I have never hear of them before and im considering the halo 1 as that may be more practical for me. 

I also found this diy kit that I feel might fit the bill, https://www.troelsgravesen.dk/SBAcoustics-10.htm

he describes the sound as "Bass is deep, potent and dynamic. Need I say more? I won't. Middriver and tweeter deliver an astonishing level of transparency…Transient response is phenomenal!" but I cant find much information on them online from people who built them. 

As for everyone's suggestions, I will be visiting a few dealers that carry a lot of your suggestions, offerings from JBL, B&W, Dynaudio, wharfedale, monitor audio, have peaked my interest

thanks again for taking the time to help me out 

 

@curiousjim Maybe I should mention I have the left one on the left side of the left speaker, and the right one on the right side of the right speaker, both about 5 inches next to their respective speakers 

@curiousjim thanks for your reply, I currently have 2 PB 1000 pro's in stereo, I have the phase inverted on both, as without this setting I struggle to hear them. currently they are at -10 each on the power level, with the subs I am totally satisfied with the everything below 100hz down to about 30-35ish. I have them crossed rather high (80hz at a 6db/octave rolloff) without this, the range that im dissatisfied with (100-400) sounds even thinner and almost not existent.

very happy with the subs and their app, they don't sound boomy or slow, no complaints at all, they are however the biggest I can fit in my space, although I don't imagine I would need bigger.  

@mrdecibel thanks for your suggestions! I have damped all the areas you have mentioned with something similar to dynamat as I could not find dynamat at the time. I can not use the factory enclosures, the enclosures I built are better in every way. the factory enclosures make the speaker unlistenable to my ears, huge resonances around 2-400hz, anemic bass. I built ported cabinets about the same size as a forte (curved unibody design with bracing, 1 inch thick) and everything I was looking to improve, improved, just not enough unfortunately. they have served me well for about 2 years, and I will always keep them at least in a home theatre set up. 

Hey everyone who has helped me, I wanted to post an update for those interested as well as ask a few more questions. 

I was able to get to a dealer a spend a couple of hours there and listen to a few brands that were mentioned here. 

first was the B&W lineup, I was surprised how similar their less expensive models were to the flagship, but the sound is not for me. too bright and in your face, had a lot more comparable bass than my current speakers , and more upper bass/lower midrange, but still not enough, felt as if there was no meat on the bones. very fast and detailed speakers, but to me they didn't sound dynamic, to me dynamic is the difference of quiet to loud (maybe im not explaining dynamic correctly) but these B&W speakers were never quiet, always something shimmering in the top end , the woofers seemed totally disconnected from the tweeter and mid woofer, sort of like my current speakers. that's the impression I was left with. they were connecting to a massive Macintosh integrated, not sure the model. 

next up was the sonus faber sonetto III, they did not have the v's in stock, but I was very impressed with these speakers, they hand punch, warmth, pretty dynamic as well, and the most shocking thing was the scale. I can believe how big everything sounded, the singers scale was life like, this might sound crazy but everything sounded bigger and fuller vs any speaker in the B&W lineup even the flagship although imaging not as precise as any of the B&W speakers. the sonus faber hooked up to a Yamaha integrated (I don't know the name but he said it was around $3K) 

the big surprise was the mission 770, maybe because I was biased against the look, and never really heard much about the brand, but these were a very engaging speaker, I don't know how to describe the sound, I think I need to spend more time with these (hooked up to Macintosh integrated) 

I heard a few other brands but nothing notable. 

a few people mentioned dynaudio, and there's a pair of Sapphire's on the used market for a fair price and somewhat close to me, I am planning to audition. anybody have experience with those?

also near to me is a pair of Cremona M, my thinking is that if the sonetto III impressed me so much, for not much more money on the used market perhaps the Cremona M will be even better.  

I would still like to hear the elysian 2, but no dealer within 7 hours seems to sell them and unfortunately none on the used market either. 

might be worth noting that I am planning to sell the Logos mk II and keep the 40wpc primaluna, until I can afford to sell it and upgrade to the evo 400 (75ish wpc). 

 

 

thanks again everyone!