Help with new speakers

I thought I was the only military pilot / audio nut in the world! I fly AH-64 Apache attack helicopters for the Army, hence the name "gunbunny".

So far, my hearing is still pretty good. Of course, I haven't done it for 20+ years.

Before purchasing any speaker, please try to listen to the Revel M-20s. For $1,000 each, they are quite a bargin--and they leave you with money left over to purchase a subwoofer, like the Revel B-15 which mates extremely well with them.

Greetings Lmathias,

I tip my virtual hat to you for not putting your love of music on hold because of your hearing loss.

My step-father is a hard-core opera fan who spent twentysomething years flying helicopters for the Marine Corps, so his hearing is pretty well hammered, especially above 4 kilohertz. What I have found especially helpful to him is speakers that have a high signal-to-noise ratio.

The kind of noise you don't want is boxy colorations such as internal resonances and panel resonances. Also, you'd do best with a relatively high ratio of direct to reflected sound, because reflections and room resonances are detrimental to clarity. Further, you want drivers that are inherently articulate and free from resonances and colorations.

This would lead you toward fairly directional speakers that do not use traditional boxes. Several possibilities come to mind:

I'd suggest the InnerSound Eros; Maggie 3.6's; any Audio Artistry speakers; Gradient Revolutions; and Quad 63's, 988's, or (my favorite) original ESL's. You could probably stack a pair of original Quads and stay within your budget.

I'm a dealer for the Gradients, own a pair of original Quads, and am familiar with most of the others.

Just for your information, the man who designs and builds arguably the best electrostats made, Roger West of Sound Lab, is completely deaf in one ear and uses a hearing aid (and cupped hand) for the other.

Best of luck to you!

ACI Jaguars, simply superb. Combine with a pair of their Titan II LE subs and you're still under budget. Listen for yourself, I think you'll love them.

If Martin Logans do anything nearly perfectly, it's voice.

I agree with Brulee, your initial choices should work very well. I assume you have considered good earphones? A friend of mind with substantial hearing loss was thrilled when he discovered good Sennheisers.

Hi Lmathias, You have listened two excellent pairs of speakers that IMO do voices very well. As good or better than some that have been mentioned. If you have been listening to them in a dealers showroom, this could be the problem. Different equipment or wires may be all that is needed to give you what you are looking for. Give them another try. Much success in your hunt.

You MUST check into Silverline Sonatas. Fantastic mids, great imageing(sp) works well with tube or SS. Retails for 6k but I've seen them for less on Agon. The Mkll has 2 woofers and offers better bass than Mkl but that's the only sound difference.

Totems have very nice midrange.

B&W Nautilus

I have Thiel 3.6's, which do midrange really well, but need lots of power. I just heard Von Schweikert VR-4's and thought they do voices amazingly well and are more efficient (89db vs 86db for the Thiels).

The ATC Active 20. ATC is in ~60% of the recording studios in the world. I bought 3 ATC 100's and couldn't be happier. ATC's system took home Stereophile's best system for 2001. One quote is "Best system at any price". Check them out. www.atc.gb.net

They're from britian. The only US dealer that I know of is in Denver, Colorado.

Check out the Morel line. They have no dealers outside of Boston, MA (actually Allston) but their speakers sound great and they're reasonably priced. I owned Renaissance Prelude and the midrange was dead-on, good bass performance as well.
Morel drivers are used in some of the best speakers (Eggleston Works for one) and really do get the midrange right.
www.morelusa.com