@seadog77,You are doing the right thing. I recollect that you were struggling with this in Dec last year. Great move to audition the speakers in your home. I envy you :-)The problem with opinions is they could bias your thoughts. So I had listened to Spendor 7 and ProAc D30RS. They had their own strong points. But in the end the ProAcs won me over with their midrange and vocal clarity. I say, pick a genre of music that you most frequently listen to. Depending on the medium, pick a well recorded CD/LP and play it on the loudspeakers and see what YOU prefer. In my case I value the vocals a lot and a person standing in front of me is very important. You should decide what is important to you.One more thing I note is that you cannot give more than 16-19 behind the speakers. Alright. But do you plan to do plenty of bass trapping? If not, then reconsider your decision regarding the D48R and D9. It is not that the bass is out of control for these speakers, but you have put a lion inside a dog kennel. I am able to give 72 inches behind them and almost 42 inches on the sides. With this placement the bass sounds nice and tight. Hence I know.Also there is a gentleman on this forum who had the D9s and sold them because he was not happy with how they sounded in his 12X13 room. Same goes for D48. Look at the D30RS or Spendor D7.Hope this helps. I say take your own sweet time to decide. Good luck in making your final decision.
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@seagod77,I am slightly perplexed - you have a bigger room size than me. Is there a limitation as to why you cannot pull the speakers more than the distance you specified? While true that overall room size is bigger, the distance to back and side matters for imaging and depth of sound stage. If you don't allow the speakers to "breath", then you will have lot of smearing in the imaging area and depth will be shallow and you will end up blaming the speakers for being "in your face". One thing that will favor the D48 overt the D9 is that they are downward ported instead of being back ported.
As far as ribbons are concerned, yes they are sensitive and placement is important. But ProAc's approach to ribbons is pretty good and even when I sway my head a few inches in any direction, the change is not drastic as some other designs I have heard. When you take the time to properly position the speakers, the imaging, midrange and vocals are breathtaking.
@jetter,While the ribbon is delicate, it is protected by a grill. If you check my system, I have a close up pic of the D48's ribbon tweeter. That should give you an idea about the ProAc's ribbon.
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@seadog77,Did you make a decision yet? Since you mentioned that you cannot place the D48Rs away from the wall, I suggest that you play the "Thanks To You" song by Boz Scaggs on both the loudspeakers and decide which loudspeaker you should buy. Try if you can play this using Tidal. If not, then use Spotify or Amazon music. The bass is pretty deep on this and this should be a very good test of the bass performance in your room. No point in going for the D48R for it's midrange and vocals, if the bass overpowers the room and ultimately the clarity of the loudspeaker.Hope this helps.
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Based on your last post, it looks like you have more praises on the ProAc than the D9. But if the bass does not work for you, then go with the D9. Did you try the song I suggested? That should be a good test of what is "listenable" in your environment.Despite being a ProAc D48R, I would suggest that you have at least 24-36 inches behind these loudspeakers to breath, and at least 18 inches from side walls. If you cannot give them this much space, simply go with the D9. Think of your "best 4-5 albums" of all time and take time to play them on both the speakers. If the bass on the D48 is too much, you should give them up.
If you are able to live with the bass that they provide, you can go with them.It would be a disservice on my part to misguide a fellow audiogoner into buying the ProAc D48 just because I love them. You can also talk to your dealer to lend the D30RS and Spendor D7, since you are going to give him our business.
Good luck and hope you are able to take a decision soon.
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@rsf507 ,
Very strange because I did listen to the Spendor D7 and they did not seem to lack in midrange or fullness. I am assuming that equipment makes a difference. The D7 I listened to had $$$$ MBL amp, preamp and CD player feeding them. In real life no one would make this kind of a combination; but it showed what the speakers were capable of.
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@seadog77,
Congratulations on finalizing your choice :-)
Please do post some pics of your system once you receive those D9s.
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@itzhak1969, I have a feeling that OP was always gravitated towards the D9 because the D48R caused issues in his room. Note the following question he is asking:
Question for any D9 owners out there, how long did they take to fully run in ? I assume I am not hearing now what their final run in sound will be like. Will the midrange/ treble open up more, like D48R more, or is the ProAc ribbon tweeter that much better ?
So this is basically question to D9 owners and not ProAc owners. My guess is OP's mind was already made up for the D9 and just wanted some validations from existing owners. While you are correct that a couple of corner bass busters would have solved the bass issue, maybe OP thought of not to take chances with bass issue in his room with the ProAc. Of course the D48s are magic when setup correctly :-) |
@donquichotte,You will get biased opinion on this question because between the ProAc and Spendor owners we have purchased the loudspeakers that "we" thought, sounded the most natural to us. I have heard the ProAc D30, Spendor D7 and own the ProAc D48R. For piano, I would highly recommend the D48R. But would also urge you to listen to the Spendor D9 to see what you prefer. Both my kids play the piano and based on that experience I can say that the larger speakers get the sound "closer" to the original. But one thing to remember is - for a piano recording to sound "like a real piano" on a large loudspeaker, you need to provide them with enough room to breath. The smaller D30 and D7 also do piano very well, but the "scale" is different compared to the larger loudspeakers.
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Understood. Unfortunately, the space I have is not very large - about 23
square meters with a height of about 2.3 meters. I can get about
0.5-0.6 meters between the back of the speakers and the (long) wall
behind them with the speakers spaced about 2 meters apart (inner edge to
inner edge) and about 3 meters between me and the front baffle of each
speaker.
I think the mistake you are making is you are considering the ProAc D30 and Spendor D7 as small. And it is a big mistake. When I auditioned these 2 loudspeakers I was amazed by how much "larger" they sound compared to their size. Both these speakers produced low range frequencies with amazing speed and definition.The bass did not sound like "column of air" being thrown out to "sound like bass", but real low bass. With the way you mention about the positioning of loudspeaker in your room, these can go down to 30Hz without much struggle. With your configuration the D48R and D9 will overload your room and you will regret the purchase even though you may be able to afford them.
To further confuse things, I’ve read somebody prefered the mids of the
D30RS to those of the D48R, stating that the midbass driver is better in
the D30RS. Like I said, the D48R needs breathing room. If they don't get it, yes, the midrange can become muddy. In this case one should not blame the speakers, but rather blame their choice of speaker knowing their room limitation. Based on your "music diet", I suggest that you listen to some Harbeths and Sterling? (not sure, looked like a box like Harbeth, but many screws on the front when you remove the baffle; heard at AXPONA 2017).Looks like you are based somewhere in Europe, where ProAc, Spendor, Harbeth are much cheaper than the US. |
Would the big bass of the bigger speakers also muddy the midrange at moderate to low volume levels?
In a small room there is a potential that bass would muddy the midrange at moderate volume.The thing is, the ProAc D48R is very easy to drive. I posted my experience from this weekend where I brought the $89/pair Pioneer SP-BS22-LR speakers into my main listening room to see how they fair with good ancillaries. While they punched too much above their price range, on similar CDs, I had to raise the volume to 11'o clock position for them, compared to somewhere between 9-10 o'clock position for the ProAcs. I believe, the D9s are also similarly sensitive.But if your room has an "open" layout, the bigger speakers might be alright. This means, you don't have a closed room, but your audio room opens to a kitchen or living room or some other room. We have one gentleman on this site who owns a D40R and has been very happy with them as he has an open layout. |
