2. speakers
  3. 161474-89896

Looking for more detail in a speaker

Kind of a long first post but needed the space to set up my situation. 
I decided to do something about my speaker situation after demoing a pair of B&W 805d’s. One of the tracks played was Sympathy for the Devil. At the beginning of the song, a percussion instrument, either a guiro or cabasa, just popped out at me on the left speaker. I’ve heard that song a million times but never noticed that percussion instrument coming at me like that. I came home and played the track through my system, through my streamer and turntable. My speakers are Golden Ear Triton One’s. That same presentation just isn’t there like with those 805’s.
The GET1’s are certainly decent speakers; are they not designed for this type of detailed presentation? Is it my room? My listening room is a odd shaped man attic with a 3.5’ wall on one side with an 8’ wall on the other side peaking a 9’ in the middle. My listening position is about 17’ from the speakers.  I’m sure the room is acoustically challenged. Also, I have a long speaker wire run, like 40’. Does that contribute to the lack of detail? I figured out a way to trim about 15’ of speaker wire length from each run and plan to do that ASAP. I’m using AudioQuest construction rated wire. I believe they’re 14 gauge.
So, why not buy the 805’s? I’ve thought seriously about them but concerned they’ll be kind of small for my room. Seems like I need floor standers. I’d like to keep any replacement speakers at $4k. I have an opportunity to pick up a pair of Dynaudio S5.4s for $4k but haven’t made a move in them yet. 
Any suggestions on a speaker selection or adjustments to my room or speaker wire are appreciated. To sum it up, I’m looking for more instrument detail with good sound staging either by making tweaks to my current set up or getting another flavor of speakers. Thx. 
bfoura

Showing 1 response by douglas_schroeder

douglas_schroeder
3,281 posts
 
When I have heard them at shows or dealership the Golden Ear towers have sounded holistically to my ears as much "darker" speakers in terms of overall balance of frequency spectrum. Unless a speaker has attenuation to adjust the balance of driver output, your stuck with the tuning of the designer. Overall, the Golden Ear product line reminds me of the tonal character of Vandersteen, weighted toward the bottom end.
I’m not interested in debating that.

The balance has been so heavy that to date I have not been motivated to review Golden Ear speakers. The impression I have from these hearing events is that they would have impressive low end, but may struggle to get them to open up with an extreme degree of delicacy in the high end.

The more I hear of tiny 1" ribbons, the less impressed I am with them, regardless of brand. Having been an owner of the Legacy Audio Whisper and going through the conversion of the speaker from the old ribbon tweeter to the new 1" super tweeter and the 4" tweeter, it was a prodigious improvement in the upper end, with a much higher degree of deftness to the treble, and balancing better the top/bottom ends. Feel free to read my review of it at Dagogo.com for insight.

Now, having said all that, the GE is a terrific bargain! Hard to get frumpy about a speaker that gives so much for the dollar! But, when you spread out the cost on SO many big goals, there will be some lack of refinement. YMMV
More to discover