High value, giant killer speakers?

Any thoughts on Usher audio's newer TD series? Looks really interesting with their diamond-metal-diamond tweeter and midrange units. Some of their entry floor standers can be had for under $5k.

Doesn't the SV-61 use an aluminum cone and a silk dome tweeter??

I’ll put my hat in the ring here. I find in 43 years of listening, that my fav is RBH Sound. I’ve owned systems in the  TK, MC, Signature Classic, SX and SV series. For AV, my SX-T2/Reference has little competition. But for two channel listening, my new pair of SV-61 that use the beryllium 6.5” woofer and AMT tweeter may be the finest speakers I’ve ever heard. They are a “poor man’s” Voca Fina. Incredible. 

Mid 90’s BIC Venturi speakers always sounded great!
 Alter Lansing m-508’s/510’s
most of the Energy line made in the great white north, not China.

Another one would be t+a s300 talis. Speaker is extremely impressive. Heard it yesterday. 

Lots of definitions for giant killers, I suppose, but here’s my experience and what shook out as giant killers for me and the reasons I’m willing to suggest them as such.

I went thru a 6 month speaker search where I auditioned a large number of speakers, probably over 30 but for sure over 20 (didn’t keep detailed notes).

In the end for me Spendor D7 were my giant killers because they, for me-let me stress that, bettered a long list of comparatively priced speakers (giant here in beating quantity) and bettered for me a small group costing well more (804d3, persona, kaanta), (giant here in beating well known popular speakers costing nearly double).

Your results may vary but that was my experience. I’ve written extensively on the search in other threads so if anyone wants more detail just see my past posts.

I was auditioning speakers for a couple years; the Ryan R630 made me really question spending more for the something else. Without doubt they regular cones-in-a-wood-box type of speakers, but wow, they are really well executed. Didn't find much improvement up to ~$10K efforts from other manufacturers. 

Dznutz lollll yup I'm in the market.

MAGICO A3s jump on a pair ASAP!!

Back from the grave Ricky?

I would add Yamaha NS5000. Extremely impressive speaker and although pricey I think it can take on speakers that are more expensive.

Talked to Ron at Marigo Labs the other day. He has the Tekton Encore ($8000). He thinks they are better than his King Sound Electrostats. He is going to mod them. The Tekton Moab has the same mids and highs with "merely’ two 12 inch woofs for bass.....$4500 the pair delivered...with in home trial. There is a guy on the Moab thread who replaced his 20.1 or 20.5 Maggies with them.....he is really happy. Modified, the Moab would be better than most $50K speakers....that is my guess.

What kind of mod ?

Everyone's favorite is a "giant killer".

I agree somewhat with this. That said one new favourite is Dutch & Dutch 8. About $10k with amps and dac built in. I hope I can save money for those.

Ricevs - what mods is he going to do on the Moab?

Talked to Ron at Marigo Labs the other day. He has the Tekton Encore ($8000). He thinks they are better than his King Sound Electrostats. He is going to mod them. The Tekton Moab has the same mids and highs with "merely’ two 12 inch woofs for bass.....$4500 the pair delivered...with in home trial. There is a guy on the Moab thread who replaced his 20.1 or 20.5 Maggies with them.....he is really happy. Modified, the Moab would be better than most $50K speakers....that is my guess.

I'll pile on the Maggie train here.  Used Thiels can be awesome and can be had for 25% of their original price and there's a whole cult of Thiel users out there.  I would also say that your choice may also depend on the type of music you listen to.  Maggie and Thiels both are capable of great delicacy and are highly resolving speakers -- great classical and jazz speakers.  Don't let anyone tell you Maggie's can't generate high SPLs because they very much CAN and will but require as has already been stated, large amounts of current to deliver.

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.

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....

As others have already said, Tekton.

I have heard several, and they outperform speakers at much higher prices. 

Also, Maggies. But they have more limitations in set up, and driving them.

Their top of the line, 30.7 at 30K (hardly cheap) still outperform speakers at 2X or maybe more. 

Magnepan LRS without a doubt.

Incredible sound for very little money.

They are not for everyone for sure but, certainly fit the criteria for this post. 

Doug 

Shop the used full range speakers here and if you go back 10 years or so you can get your dream speaker for a fraction and since there’s no perfect speaker your hardest job will be deciding which compromise you’re willing to live with 

Thiel CS 3.7  
KEF Blade 

If I had the option I would take these 2 speakers over speakers that I have heard costing $75K+. Rather happy that my ears like the much lower cost reference gear. Unfortunately, I may not be able to find one (in a few months) and not be able to fit the other into my space. 

Triangle Australe EZ

Audio Physic Virgo II must be right up there on the list 

" 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

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. 

but it never was seamless, and always too bright

@tweak1 

Agree, they are not neutral at all but on the bright side.

Klipsch Jubilee for under 9G kills those big boys on value for the dollar on a true all horn system.

Spatial is releasing their M5 Sapphire speaker ($3K) that I'd be very tempted to try. 

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.

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

Vanatoo.   Choose your source device and connection type.  

@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. 

Audiokinesis (Duke) has made giant killers for a long time.
His Dreammakers are better than many speakers that cost 3 times more. They are also easy to drive which always helps keep amplifier distortion down. Very neutral, nice extension, excellent soundstage- hard to fault.

Seas A26 kit

they replaced my Harbs shl5plus and im just as happy.

So subjective. 

At what starting point does a loudspeaker have to be to be a 'giant' killer? Obviously the LRS is, but can a speaker that costs $9000 be deemed as such? The new Elac bookshelf loudspeakers as heard at the RMAF this year certainly are slayers to my ears.

@213runnin that wasn’t my experience at all. Plus numerous threads of them going into protection mode on semi-difficult loads.

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 ?

@tweak1  I can get a EP 2.8 for about $3k. I heard the 4.8 and did enjoy them.

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.  

The Schiit Vidar isn’t a muscular amp. Pushing Maggie’s is beyond its capabilities. 

@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

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

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.

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?

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!