An Expander is the *opposite* of what you want! Most live music today is played through a PS/SR system that has both dynamic limiters and compression. Expansion will make your system sound *less* dynamic for 99% of the program material!! (it's the opposite of the intuitive for this one)
There are two main things to gettting a "live" sound in your room:
1) bandwidth - you need a lot of bandwidth, especially on the bottom
2) output - you need enough output with low enough distortion at the high enough level.
These add up to: low distortion at peak levels.
Then you need really GOOD recordings and signal chain to get them to your speakers.
Keep in mind the size and space of the venue that you are hearing the "live" music in. That makes a *huge* difference in the perception of sound!! IF you really want a similar experience you may need a physically larger listening room, and there is no direct substitute.
It is true that a good horn system (not all are "good") will have what I call "jump factor" out the yin-yang compared to other speakers. This can be one way to get more "life" into the playback, but horns too generally sound better in larger rooms.
Small speakers alone generally do not give a "big" sound with high impact because of limited headroom, distortion at higher levels (peaks too) and limited LF response.
Getting the sound of live acoustic music and voices is the holy grail of hi-fi anyhow, and it is extremely difficult to even get a good facsimile thereof...
Welcome to the world of audio! :- )
There are two main things to gettting a "live" sound in your room:
1) bandwidth - you need a lot of bandwidth, especially on the bottom
2) output - you need enough output with low enough distortion at the high enough level.
These add up to: low distortion at peak levels.
Then you need really GOOD recordings and signal chain to get them to your speakers.
Keep in mind the size and space of the venue that you are hearing the "live" music in. That makes a *huge* difference in the perception of sound!! IF you really want a similar experience you may need a physically larger listening room, and there is no direct substitute.
It is true that a good horn system (not all are "good") will have what I call "jump factor" out the yin-yang compared to other speakers. This can be one way to get more "life" into the playback, but horns too generally sound better in larger rooms.
Small speakers alone generally do not give a "big" sound with high impact because of limited headroom, distortion at higher levels (peaks too) and limited LF response.
Getting the sound of live acoustic music and voices is the holy grail of hi-fi anyhow, and it is extremely difficult to even get a good facsimile thereof...
Welcome to the world of audio! :- )