KEF, ProAc, Monitor Audio and others

Brownsf,

Great to see you took our original  advice to go out and listen and seek out some of the best modern loudspeakers.

We are a KEF dealer and the Ref 3 are superb and are often overlooked by many audiophiles who feel that the larger speaker companies don't build as good a product as the smaller more boutique companies.

The KEF's are more precise with a more well defined sound stage then the Monitors, the Monitors are a bit softer sounding with the new AMT drivers, also the KEF's are a more slender cabinet also with the KEF's  you have a bit of room control with the different ports.

Other great loudspeakers to look at are the Legacy's if you can find them.

Personally I think the KEF's  are  a better overall design then the Proacs.

The new Paradigm Persona's are also quite amazing and do some things better then the Kef Ref 3 they are a bit more expensive for a comparable model which would be the Persona 5F, they are stunning looking and have an incredibly holographic sound stage with very deep tight bass, the other issue is that with the high tech Beryilium  drivers they have great resolution than other similar systems.

You should try to determine what kind of sound you like more warm and rich sounding, the Vandersteen, Legacy camp, or the higher resolution camp, KEF, Proac, Vivid, Rahido.

Good luck and happy listening.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Interesting comment "much of the music we listen to was mastered on them." well actually no,  there was a time in the early ninties that some studios were using Proacs.

Most of the popular recordings rock and jazz were and are mastered on ATC, and if you look at ATC's website you will see just how many people are using ATC professionally and they have been the dominant force in studio's for the last 40 years, sure there are others competiting in this market, ADAM, Myer and many others.

The Yamaha NS 10M was the dominant monitor in the 1970's thanks to Bob Clearmountain's endorsement and by today's standards the NS 10M was a horribily colored speaker/

As per Proac vs Monitor vs KEF these are all great speakers and differ in tems of how they present the infomation. 

As per Proac's playing the music and sound effortless doing it all three of these speakers will do the same thing.

It will come down to Ribbon tweeter, Proac, which tend to be extremely detailed, vs AMT, Monitor Audio's, which have a slightly more laid back top end compared to a true Ribbon vs the seemless quality of having all drivers made out of the same material in the KEF, plus the soundstaging capabilites and imaging that come from a true point source.

We would say this is a hard choice all these speakers are excellent comes doesn to presentation, price, styling.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Dekay you miss my point, the NS 10M were everywhere because of one partiuclar engineer  who endorsed them.

I am not saying they are good, just the contrary, the reason they were used was an endorsement deal between Bob Clearmountain who was one of the biggest and most prominant mastering engineers in the 70's with the thinking that if your mix sounded good on NS 10M then they would sound good on car stereos and other devices. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Sfoth,  I have over 30 years professional system setup experience, while working at two of the biggest A/V stores in NYC Sound by Singer and Innovative Audio, and then 14 years at my own shop.

Bo is just plain crazy, any good system when setup properly can recreate a  three dimensional sound stage. Height has more to do with the physical size of a loudspeaker. 

The keys to createing a 3d system is to make sure your speakers are positioned correctly, reflections are addressed, power conditioning, power cables and vibration isolation is used. 

To help create a 3d image, Acoustic System Resonators work wonders so do Shakti Hologpraphs.  Make sure the speakers are three to five feet from the back wall if possible. 

A new trick is the Isoacoustics footers which help in image focus and bass tightness.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ