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Impossible? Small towers, efficient, musical, loud

I've been reading on threads here for different speakers that sound good with rock, which is my primary pleasure. But I am also a lover of high fidelity and do not want to compromise on sound quality, so this isn't necessarily about speakers that just sound good with rock. My situation may be a paradox or impossible, but I'm hoping I can be enlightened favorably. I'm looking for smallish floorstanders that are tube friendly, placement friendly, and can still sound nice and full at reasonable to loud levels.

Room is an open design roughly 23' wide, 12' deep and vaulted ceilings 8-12' high. Listening area is 15' wide as opposed to the 23'. Speakers must go along the wide wall at 10' apart, one speaker is in a corner. Listening position is 10' from the speakers. I can pull the speakers out at most 2' away from the walls, depending on how large the cabinets are.

Associated gear:
Cary Rocket 88R (30w triode/60w ultralinear)
Promitheus passive TVC Ref 4
Eastern Electric minimax cd

The amp and the TVC are new, haven't yet received them yet in fact but will be replacing my current gear.

Current speakers are Usher 6381, large speakers that I believe are too big for my room. With the tiny amount I can pull them away from the walls, staging is pretty flat, though surprisingly I haven't had any issues with bass boom. Hoping to put them up for sale/trade soon and wanted some feedback on what I should be looking at.

I was considering something like the smaller Silverlines (though they may not be good enough) or perhaps some Devore's. Above all I value musical speakers that emanate a sense of realism. I don't require subterranean bass, just a natural, full sound that doesn't sound wanting without a sub. Musicality is key.

Thanks in advance
tholt

Showing 6 responses by tholt

tholt OP
551 posts
 
Appreciate the feedback.

Jaybo, I will be holding onto and playing with the Ushers for now as they are my current speakers.

Jax2, I wish I could bring the speakers in but I can't. thanks for the link to the other thread, helpful. I read about the Master Set technique last night and will give it a whirl. Intriguing

FYI I have 4" thick acoustic panels behind the speakers -- one is doing double duty in the corner as a quasi-bass trap-- and Cathedral panels in the corners of the room. These all provided nice improvements: less boom and hard edged frequencies thus more clarity and ease.

To my ears my room isn't too problematic, soundstage is just rather flat. I know that a level of acceptance and compromise is in the cards. My aim for the smaller floorstanders is to give me some flexibility and freedom to move them further into the room, or more accurately, further away from the walls. I also want to try tubes and am afraid the Ushers won't like them, though I have yet to experiment. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
tholt OP
551 posts
 
Jax2 - listening position is under the short side. Can't change it.

Have not tried diffusion, no. I went with absorption because there was a ton of room boom and slap echo

I've had various components throughout my system. The only constant was the Ushers. I agree 100% about speaker placement in the room affecting soundstaging, hence one of the points of this thread. I feel if I could get smaller cabinets and thus get them away from the walls more, I could get a more dimensional soundstage. The Ushers are 18" away from the back wall, the one in the corner is roughly 2' away from the side wall. Width isn't the problem as speakers are 10' apart and fill in the space between nicely.
tholt OP
551 posts
 
Either my last post got lost in space or Audiogon hates me (they didn't like the last swear word I slipped in another post). Appreciate all the room correction suggestions (those never go out of style) but I've tweaked my room about as much as I can within my workable parameters.

Getting back on topic, are there any more suggestions for tube/placement friendly floorstanders? If i can get smaller speakers away from the walls more I think it has a good chance of helping with soundstaging.

What about Totem Hawks or Forest? Devore 8's? Living Voice?
tholt OP
551 posts
 
Kclone those look like promising speakers. Small and efficient. Did some reading and Vince from Red Wine Audio seems to really like them, which tells me that they'll prob sound good with my 30W of power. Thanks for the tip.

I should mention that I have 0 outlets locally to audition, so I will likely be buying used from agon or new online with warranty. My Ushers bluebook for ~$2000, likely putting up the matching center channel as well so trade value would be up to $2500 for all 3, $2k or less for just L/R.
tholt OP
551 posts
 
Upstate, i see in your system you use or used Hawks. What did you think of them? You mentioned in one of your posts that bass was light. Care to venture how low they went? Totems are on my short list, though I've not heard them.
tholt OP
551 posts
 
An update, I received the Cary and it seems to be handling the Ushers remarkably well, even in triode. Nice full sound, don't detect much if any distortion. I'm still very interested in getting speakers that are better suited to this amplifier, but I'm pleasantly surprised with the current sound.
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