Need Recommendations for a pair of Speakers around $1,000


Hey All !

Ok, so with wife is good with spending about $1K on a pair of speakers.

I'm not sure of the preamp yet but the amp will most likely be an Adcom GFA-545 not the 545II.

I now have an older pair of Dayton Wright LCM-1's which are more suited to a smaller room.

The new speakers will be in the living room connected to the Adcom and also a signal fed from the TV but I don't want a multi-speaker system. Stereo is fine and if they sound good to me with music the wife will be happy with the TV sound. She just wants them to look good and not have a lot of wires hanging around. We'll be listening to vinyl, CD's, Lossless, FM and possibly music fed through Apple or AT&T fiber optic TV setup.

The living room is 19' w X  29' d with a 12' ceiling, hardwood oak flooring and 4 - 6' tall windows on one wall. The other side wall is open to a long entrance way and 2/3 of the far side is open to the kitchen are.

I thought about a used pair of Klipsch Hersey's but I keep reading comments that they are too outdated compared to advances in audio over the last few decades.

So for around $1K what are some good choices. I'm OK with used.

Thank you !

 

gorquin

Showing 5 responses by jjss49

yes older vandy’s or maybe a set of tektons or elac floorstanders... you have a decent sized room to fill with sound, fairly modest budget

Magnepan LRS+ and never look back.

while agree these are terrific, high value speakers, op said this:

The new speakers will be in the living room connected to the Adcom and also a signal fed from the TV but I don’t want a multi-speaker system. Stereo is fine and if they sound good to me with music the wife will be happy with the TV sound. She just wants them to look good and not have a lot of wires hanging around.

there will be issues with the grainy adcom driving them, but more serious issue may be w-a-f...

over time i have had the 535 545 (i and ii) 555 - it was years ago of course

yes papa nelson pass designed them when he was a pup - but one needs to separate design and execution...

the adcoms were designed and spec’d to a specific (quite modest) price point, even for back in the day, so there were numerous execution tradeoffs in parts spec and quality, mechanical and electrical isolation... result is a nice sweet sounding product at fairly modest volumes but a glare, grain and glassiness that comes through once there are some demands placed on the amp and its power supply, especially into more reactive speaker loads

no free lunch here... take a nice resolving pair of speakers, like maggies, vandersteens, harbeths, revels, focals, get a clean source, run one of the old adcoms and then a modern day pass amp... there is a substantial, immediately audible difference

even leaving aside the capacitor aging issue, if a 30 year old 545 worth $400 could deliver for a discriminating audio lover what high-level modern ss amps can, we would all have them, and hegel, ayre, pass labs, belles, naim, exposure would all be out of business

knowledgeable well informed diy always saves money relative to buying high grade branded gear ....and can bring other pleasures too (i.e. sense of personal accomplishment in improving a piece of gear) - there are risks too obviously

best of luck

I'm considering Danny's X-LS Encore.

make sure you set money aside for his upgrade kit... 😂😁