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Looking for speaker recommendations that I can purchase on Amazon.com

Budget: under US$5000 and would prefer a price point of less than $3000/pair. The most expensive speakers I have owned so far are Polk RTi A7's, so this will be a big jump for me.

Purpose: music

Room: I tend to move every few years, so I don't want speakers that will work best only with very specific room conditions. Currently, I will be using these in a medium size room of about 22 feet x 18 feet. The room has carpet and window treatments.

Music sources: CD's, lossless music files stored on computer and MP3's when that's all I have available. I don't ahve any SACD's yet, but I plan on purchasing more high quality music once I have this system set up.

Music styles: acoustic, Indian classical (sitar, srangi, flute), alternative rock (Portugal. The Man, Sleeping with Sirens, etc.), older rock (e.g., Rush).

The speakers should sound good playing the Tanpura (aka Tambura). It is a classical Indian accompaniment instrument in the "drone" category. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanpura) Example of sound here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7tlqXix_eo
With bad equipment that sound is fatiguing to me. Live it is beautiful and relaxing. Hopefully I can find speakers that will do it justice.

Personal Preferences: I am looking for non-fatiguing, warm, musical qualities. In another discussion topic here on this forum, @mtrot and I agreed about "smooth, sweet, soft, silky treble" and "shimmery, airy cymbals" as goals.

Amplifier: Yamaha P5000S

DAC: to be determined, but probably something like the Teac NT-503

Finally, the speakers of choice must be sold on Amazon.com, Bestbuy.com (or possibly some other similar retail website). I have personal reasons for this limitation. It isn't always true that I will need to buy all my speakers or audio gear from one of these sites, but for the moment, it is a requirement. Please don't recommend anything that isn't available on one of these sites. Thanks.

lowoverdrive

Showing 6 responses by willemj

willemj
1,036 posts
 
What you are describing are precisely the benefits of big power. As you Americans say about car engines: there is nothing that beats cubic inches. Just imagine the amount of physical energy produced by a symphony orchestra. The speakers have to reproduce that, with an efficiency of perhaps 1 % (a proper calculation is beyond me at this time of the day). Even with such by audiophile standards relatively massive amplifier power, you can only hope to reproduce such a symphony orchestra at little more than postage stamp size (a domestic room will not allow anything more anyway). As you discovered, watts fortunately do not cost that much anymore.
As for thePX3 and PX5  successors of this amp, apparently their fans do not switch off completely, so they are less suitable for domestic use.
willemj
1,036 posts
 
Somebody here questioned the Yamaha P5000S amplifier. The link that I posted to the smaller P3500S showed that that is a perfectly neutral amplifier that measured exceptionally well. Frequency response is perfectly flat, even well above the range of human hearing, and distortion was vanishingly low, even at levels below 1 watt. I bought the 2x250 watt P2500S for my son, and I can testify that it sounds fine: completely neutral and not a tinge of hardness. The more powerful P5000S admittedly has one difference: it has a switch mode power supply to reduce weight and volume. I think that was a perfectly rational decision on the part of Yamaha. I know there are plenty of audiophiles who believe that switch mode power supplies are evil, but I am truly convinced they are just imagining things (do they have measurements to back up their claims, or controlled listening tests?). Big companies like Yamaha, with their huge engineering staffs, know what they are doing, and so do their pro audio customers.
On a more general note, I think those interested in high end audio would do well to stop worrying about electronics, and focus on what really matters: speakers and the room.
willemj
1,036 posts
 
lou_setriodes,
You are I think too fast in your scepticism about that Yamaha amplifier. Did you actually read the review of the Yamaha P3500S that I linked to, and the very detailed measurements that the reviewer published? These days I at least rarely see such factual detail in a review. It is a first rate amplifier and fully up to high hifi standards. I therefore bought the smaller P2500S for my son, and I can only confirm that amplifier's sonic qualities.
willemj
1,036 posts
 
Did you read that test?
willemj
1,036 posts
 
This was the conclusion of the test (if you don’t know French, the Audio Precision graphs should speak for themselves, link at the bottom):

CONCLUSIONS
. La puissance annoncée est largement obtenue (370W Rms sans remontée de distorsion, pour 350W Rms annoncé)
. Bande passante extra-large (ceux qui lui reprochent de manquer d’aigu, faudra m’expliquer...)
. Distorsion infime à bas niveau, très faible jusque la limite de l’écrêtage
. Pas de distorsion de croisement, toute petite remontée de distorsion dans la zone 0.5W - 8W Rms; pas mal vu le faible courant de repos de l’étage de sortie!
. Un ampli que l’on peut utiliser en utilisation domestique comme en sono de qualité
. Quant au prix... "honteusement bas" pour un appareil de ce niveau de perfs (400 euros chez Thomann...), de puissance et de protections.

Je suis content d’avoir acheté cet ampli et son grand frère P5000S pour mon système tri-amplifié, ce P3500S va donc rejoindre mon rack pour driver les médiums CMCD-JBL. Je suis convaincu, attachant une grande importance aux résultats de mesure.
(Je suis électronicien de passion et de métier)

Petite anecdote je n’ai pas entendu le ventilo se déclencher pendant les phases ou je le faisais travailler à puissance max le temps de la FFT..
La résistance de puissance, elle commençait à sentir le chaud!

Que reste-t-il aux "classe A" ésotériques et infiniment plus chers? je ne rentrerai pas dans ce débat...

Read more at http://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum/amplificateurs-de-puissance-haute-fidelite/mesures-ampli-yamaha-p...
willemj
1,036 posts
 
This makes it perfectly clear: you want a euphonic system, including even order harmonic distortion. That is up to you. Conversely, I don’t want any distortion, just a straight wire with gain. I don’t want electronics to have a sound of their own. My idea of musicality is to leave the music as much as possible as it is. That is my very personal preference.
As for the Yamaha, it measures very well (just read the test), but it also sounds very clean and neutral. And it is not class D but A/B. My son’s P2500S and the tested P3500S have traditional power supplies, the bigger P5000S has a switched mode power supply.
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