I stand corrected. I would add the Acoustic Research AR-303's of the early '90s to the Vienna... when paired to a Sunfire amp of same vintage.
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Everyone's favorite is a "giant killer". Has to be in order to assuage the restless ego. Heaven forbid you actually spent money on an average performer! Audiophiles need to think they hit a home run with their system while others hit a double, or perhaps a triple. Imo, when you ignore major shortcomings in design and performance you have automatically disqualified your "giant killer". A purported giant killer that can't do under 35Hz +/-3dB? Really? I think not. A panel that sounds dynamically dead compared to a horn as a giant killer? Uh, no. Just because you happened to get a speaker sounding terrific to you in no way means it's inherently superior to any given other speaker. :) |
@douglas_schroeder Absolutely every other poster here has been supportive and encouraging. Does it feel good to poop in the punch bowl? Funny that you are the first to mention ‘ego’. I wonder why that is? |
Wharfedale and Quad when you are 2 of the very very few vertically alligned companies in the game with odles of money and R&D at your disposal with Peter Comeau 1 of the best designers ever, it's a no brainier....The Wharfedale D330 is a killer lil Floorstander, the Diamond 11.1 just continues the Diamond tradition, the Heritage Linton and Denton models, and the Quad S and Z lines. The new Evo4 line and the Flagships will be dropped soon, real music at real prices with killer build and technology! |
"Everyone's favorite is a "giant killer". Has to be in order to assuage the restless ego. Heaven forbid you actually spent money on an average performer!" No ego here... and I think I spent my money on an average performer. "A purported giant killer that can't do under 35Hz +/-3dB? Really? I think not." Maybe a speaker itself won't do that... but with proper placement it's not to hard to make the room go that low. I only use my sub for movies... so something is working for me. :) |
Depends..... how big is this Giant?? Zu Dirty Weekends at $1000. It may not be your last speaker, but it should maybe be your first or second. I have 3 other pairs of speakers in the $5k range, and I am liking the DWs VERY MUCH! All 4 pairs are full range and of very different designs, and the DWs can hang with them in overall enjoyment. Oh... and they look cool too..... |
I'll tell anyone who will listen to check out Omega Speakers. Their 4.5 inch drivers have a quick and wide presentation and sound great with a sub. Their Alnico drivers have great tone and have a really compelling "layered" kind of sound. Plus, all of their speakers are pretty efficient. Totally worth checking out. |
Well, it really is the combination of speaker, everything upstream and the room size/setup. Too many variables, hence the 9,359 suggestions here. For what it’s worth I just bought a pair of Elac Uni-Fi UB5’s for my brother-in-law along with a new Parasound A23 amp, a used Para P5 pre-amp and a new pair of Polk Audio PSW505 subs (the P5 has dual sub outs with variable crossover). As a system they work quite well. It took some time to dial it in but it sounds quite impressive even without coming room treatment. He has an older Sony Blu-ray player as a CD source. It will improve over time but it is orders of magnitude better sound than he has EVER had before! The small Elacs are a good place to start. I have Tekton Design OB Sigma hybrid open baffle speakers, Hsu Research 10" subs driven by both a vintage Ad Com 555II and Parasound A23’s in bridged mode driving the passive subs. I believe Tekton Design is another good value place to start in speakers. Andrew Jones (Elac) and Eric Alexander (Tekton) are doing very nice design work! |
Actually
douglas_schroeder has a point. Sometimes its more important to know what NOT to buy, than what to buy. How about starting a post about what speakers to stay away from? |
I wanted to add that I recently purchased a used pair of Dynaudio 42's, and to me they sound pretty similiar (from what I remember) to the original cbm-170. I'd say the Ascend has less bass, a brighter tweeter and a more detailed midrange. The 42 in comparison has a thicker, darker midrange, more bass slam and a much better tweeter. Overall they are both ruthlessly revealing and sound fantastic with certain music, but too harsh on other music. Both are much differen't than a forgiving speaker like a psb. |
I have been comparing Maggie LRS with Zu Dirty Weekend - powered by Schiit Vidar monoblocks and a Freya preamp. The Zu's are very good with a sweet sound and beautifully-made cabinets from Utah. They also let me go a little past their 60-day full-refund period while I waited on Magnepan LRS's to arrive. The music started out of the LRS's before I even sat down and I knew I was listening to something more profound. I listened to Mahler's 2nd and was even moved to tears in the 4th movement. That totally surprised me and pretty much made my decision. And the usual caveat: this is true for me and my partially damaged ears in my particular listening room. I think the LRSs'bass is somewhat muddy on genres with a driving/thumping bass lines, so eventually I will find a subwoofer to fill out the LRS's. But surprisingly, I really liked the way the LRS's handled bass on jazz trio and vocal music. The Zu's do a very decent job from high to low. Brian |
@esch, I concur with your opinon regarding the Zu vs. Maggie. I, too, tried a pair of Zu Union, and Omen speakers. In both cases, they were very close to my Vandy speakers (Treo's and VLR's), but seemed to lack the 'refinement' Vandy offers. I suspect the same occurs with Maggies. Re Bass: One thought that occurs to me is that the Schiit Vidar Monoblocks aren't up to the task of powering Maggies. Yes, they work, but I think you would be surprised if you put in a nice Class A amp, Heck, even an AB amp like McCormack should probably tighten up that bass. Schiit makes an impressive product for the money, but Maggies really like a good power source to deliver the goods. My 2 cents... Bob |
Incorrect. The Vidar is a very robust design that Schiit has even demoed with Maggies. They wouldn’t do that if it revealed weaknesses in their amp. The little LRS is getting 200wpc with the Vidar. when I got the Vidar I was surprised that it had more impactful bass than the 200 wpc(@ 8 ohms) it replaced. |
My room is quite large it's hard to get proper spls. Prior to owning my EP KCIIs I had a love/hate relationship with Magnepan 3.5Rs driving it with W4S MC 250/500 class D amp using the 250 on the ribbons and the 500 on the bass panels, but it never was seamless, and always too bright. I even tried a Parasound A23 (class A/B) to no avail. I sold the maggies and the W4S and bought the EP KCIIs with which I have used the following class D amps; EP 100.2SE (monos), Audio Alchemy DPA 1, PS Audio M700s. Each sounded different, but although very good. One of the missing musical ques was solid bass, unless I used my 2 SVS powered subs. Now they brought the bass but were impossible to blend correctly, muddying the music. I wasn't hearing what I knew was on the discs. After a month or so of investigation into the EVS 1200, I ordered it expecting it to allow me to eliminate the subs. The EVS 1200 has the newest IcePower 600w modules + lots of tweaks by Ric Schultz, who has been tweaking products for many years. It is priced within the range of the other amps, but $700 less than the M700s @ $2200 and comes with a 30 day money back guarantee. Nothing to lose, tons to gain Fast Forward 50+ playing hours (now about 100) I disconnected the powered subs as I have much better cohesive bass than with the subs. Still the KCIIs only go to about 42Hz, which is plenty deep for most music. These speakers NEVER sounded so good. That said, my room is quite large and I am anticipating a pair of 2.8s arriving by the end of this month Moral of the story, both matter |
@helomech How do you like bigger Mags? 3.7i or 20.7 ? The 3.7is are too bright for my taste and lack coherence compared to the .7s. I haven't heard the 20.7s, but of the more affordable Maggies, the .7s are the best to my ears; they're actually capable of bass "slam" unlike the others I've heard. One would assume the 1.7s are even more capable in that regard but curiously, it's the opposite. I can only surmise the crossovers of 3-way Maggies cause significant dips at some bass freqs. In all fairness, I find that 3-way speakers from many brands suffer glaring weaknesses. |
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Helom I had the same issue when I had 3.5Rs. I tried biamping, then active XO, using a Parasound A23 on the ribbons helped a lot, but it stayed really hot even at idle. I think if my current amp (EVS 1200) was available then, I MIGHT still own them . Aas, wile active XO is the way to go, balanced XOs are $$$$ and cheap ones are crap (I blew up 4 of them @ $200/. No way to know, but people on another forum are using current class Ds and seem quite happy |
Fritz... just a great guy. Talked to him a few times and have had two of his designs—great speakers. The best way I could describe his series crossover is that it sound like point source coaxial driver, but so smooth. His original Carbon 7 had such a dark and euphoric sound but with massive imaging and texture. Unfortunately I sold for two reasons, they overloaded my small room and had to pull double duty for HT. In a larger designated listening room these would keep me happy : ). I was saving up for his Carreras but after talking to him a month ago he seems to be very excited about a new version of his Carbon 7 speakers that utilize the new Carbon woofer (faster) but also a different Scan Speak tweeter (limeted addition). What I gather from chatting with him is that he may even like the sound of this less expensive tweeter in the series crossover than the previous gen 2 Carbon 7 that utilized the air Circ tweeter. He has it advertised on audiogon but not his website. |
roxy54 "Sure. It's all a big conspiracy, right kenjit? " kanjit has a point. Large manufactures start with their flagship and then price down from there. Those flag ships speakers are not their best selling speakers for sure and are mostly used for marketing and to price out the rest of the line. They set the price point from the top then work down. They claim you achieve 90% 85% or 75% of the "sound of the flagship". It really is all marketing. Small companies have a different philosophy. They may only have one line of speakers, but they sill work top down. |
" Small companies... may only have one line of speakers, but they still work top down. " Not necessarily. I can’t speak for big companies obviously, but sometimes a small company will try to make one speaker to address one particular set of requirements, and then another speaker to address a different set of requirements, and so on. These two (or three or however many) models may end up at different price points, but that could be because they started out with different goal posts in mind. Duke expert on the inner workings of at least one small company |
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The Wharfedale Evo 4.2.....i've never heard a speaker for under $1500 that can do what they can with the music, I know the usual suspects like the Maggie LRS, Zu Dirty Weekends, get a bunch a praise. These are a very serious speaker multi-layered cabinet beautiful veneer, Larger than usual AMT tweeter, soft dome mid-range, and weigh in at 30 pounds a piece a pretty big Standmounter.... |
Any speakers that are the entry-level of any manufacturer tend to offer much more value than their more expensive models. Pretty much like cars. A 3-series BMW or a Cayman offer a huge slice of the performance of their costlier brethren. I would say "high-value giant-killer speakers" are just that. Or buy used, always buy used to get the most bang/buck. |