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Musical full-range in the $3-4K range used?

I have been going back and forth on speakers for awhile now. Looking to get a new pair (used, most likely) and I live in a really remote area with nobody except a B&W dealer nearby. I can't reasonably drive 400 miles round trip to bring speakers back home for audition, and demos at the dealer are sketchy at best. I have a decent sized room (21x14x9) and would like a musical speaker, mostly for jazz, jazz vocals, classical. Full range would be best. My last speaker was a Soliloquy 6.3, which was great in a bigger room, but a little too warm, and not tight enough in the bass for my taste.

I can use it with solid state or tubes, either is fine. I have around $2500 to budget for an integrated amp, but figured it best to find speakers I like, then an amp down the road.

Budget is max $4,000.

Some speakers I have heard at dealers, or have heard good things about:

Coincident (haven't heard these, but lots of good reviews)

Sonus Faber (seemed very musical, easy to listen to)

Tyler Acoustics (again, musical, a touch warm, nice and detailed)

Opera (haven't heard them, reputation is that they are similar to SF)

Aerial Acoustics (heard the 7b, a little flat, but could have been the $1000 integrated powering it: 9 was superb and sounded huge)

Dynaudio (heard the 5.4 at a dealer, but room was poor and speaker sounded thin and lifeless)

Acoustic Zen (haven't heard these)

Thiel (heard the 2.4, sounded really thin)

Devore (dealer is 3 hours away, but might be worth checking out the Super 8)
komaki

Showing 1 response by martykl

martykl
3,578 posts
 
Komaki,

I own Cremonas (non-M series) and they feature a modestly elevated "warmth" region. Unlike some of the older SF speakers (I have also owned Minuettos for app 15 years) these speakers have more output through the presence region. The net effect is a nicely balanced, musical sounding, (though not strictly speaking "neutral" or "accurate") loudspeaker. OTOH, these are not so colored -IME - as to eventually wear on a critical listener.

Mine are in my living room with a Pathos One integrated amp and a matching Digit cd player. It sounds very nice and looks terrific. By audiophile standards this may not be the last word in system performance, but - even after listening to the more "pedigreed" speakers I use in my listening room - I'm never disappointed when I use the living room system. IMHO, it's really quite good.

Good Luck

Marty
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