Need speakers recommendation for my system (in Jakarta, Indonesia)


Hi all! Long time lurker first time poster here!

I am from Jakarta, Indonesia, in South East Asia so a bit far from the United States.. however I did spend about 8 years of my life in sunny California!

I am quite a newbie in the audiophile world, my current setup are as follows:
Speakers: Focal Chorus 726. Amp: Jadis orchestra reference integrated (with KT120 power tubes, the latest version), CDP: Rega Apollo, TT: Rega Planar 6 with MM cartridge from Rega (forgot the name).
My audio room size is: 6 meters by 5 meters (around 20 feet by 16 feet)
Type of music that I love: jazz, vocals, classical concertos, pop. 

I am looking to upgrade the focal floorstanders to the next level (around 5k-10k USD range), and have auditioned the following speakers in Jakarta: Sonus Faber Olympica II, sonus faber venere, ATC SCM40, PMC 26.25, Kef R800, B&W 8 series (the cheapest floorstander one), Tannoys (kensington, westminster, etc), focal kanta no 2.

So far the ones that I like best are the olympica II and the ATC SCM40 (these two are different price range, the ATC is the best value overall). The olympica II has the best characteristics that I am looking for: deep solid bass, transparent mids & highs, and very detailed sound. The SF venere is nothing special and can't compare with the olympica.
The ATC is amazing for its value: deep bass, very thick mid and highs, albeit not as airy and extended as the olympica II. The PMC has amazing detailed mid and highs, but the bass is very lacking IMO. The Kef R800 is a good all arounder, but nothing shouts "special" to me. The B&W speakers I just don't like: the sound is like "veiled" and not transparent at all. Also the tannoy setups I find very one dimensional (only good for vocals and do not play "crowded" music well (crowded like orchestra). 

I plan to audition more speakers such as: wilson audio sabrina (a bit out of price range), vienna acoustics, the magico A3 (am really keen to try this based on the recent rave reviews), and the Kharma S7 (I heard the Galileo exquisite and its mind blowing.. but definitely out of my price range) 

Would love to hear more recomendations for speakers! Hopefully I don't have to upgrade my jadis integrated amp to a higher power one to drive these new speakers! Thanks in advance!   


jadislover

Showing 4 responses by caphill

What about Harbeth? Do you guys have Harbeth dealer there? They will pair well with your Jadis Ref tube integrated.

@jadislover 

While upgrading your speakers are great idea but I must say that you will have to upgrade your digital front end source component (Rega Apollo CD player). 
I suggest you upgrade your CD player or get a digital streamer/DAC or standalone DAC. There are countless options out there though I'm not sure about their availabilities in your country. Rega Apollo CD player is great for the money and is suitable for a budget setup and system. 
If you could upgrade your analog front end (turntable) that would help too. While your Rega Planar 6 is decent there are plenty of room for improvement. You could upgrade the tonearm, cartridge and get a good quality phonostage preamp for your turntable. 

If you have really good speakers and amp but if your front end source components ate not up to par the overall end results would be awful. This is where the signal begins and everything else like the amplifier or pre/power amp will further amplify that signal. What's lost early in the chain cannot be restored downstream. 
Especially very good high end speakers are usually very revealing and will reveal the weaknesses of your upstream electronics eg your front end source components, preamp , etc etc. 
@jadislover

Don’t get me wrong.....Rega makes very musical gears at affordable price points.
If you want to stick with using CD player at least you should upgrade to Rega Saturn-R CD player currently retails for $3k here in the US. I know it’s 3x as much as the Apollo but the Saturn-R is a step up sonically from the Apollo. If you could swing for $10k or $11k for the Rega Isis CD player that would be even better if you have the budget for that. Last year I went to listen to the Rega Isis Valve CD player paired with the Rega Osiris integrated amp ($10k) on the Focal Sopra 2 and they sounded fabulous together. I’ve also heard this same Rega combo on different speakers : PMC, Vienna Acoustics Mozart Grand and they performed marvelous. Rega makes really good integrated amps as well as turntables especially for the money.

In regards to a Chord Qutest DAC, I’ve never heard the Qutest but I have heard the Chord Dave DAC ($10k) paired with some Naim streamer in all Naim setup using Naim preamp and power amp on some higher end PMC speakers (can’t remember the model). They were awesome. Chord Dave DAC is very good but pricey very musical & fluid imo and sonically will be a huge step up from the Qutest DAC.

Also your Marantz CD transport isn’t very good imo. Transport is very important. You need to get a very good quality CD transport if you want to stick with playing CD. Bad transport has lots of jitter. Jitter is the biggest enemy in digital audio front end source. It has significant negative impact on SQ no matter how good your DAC is. I advise you to get better transport and get a good quality digital interconnect. Great transport will make huge difference in SQ, musicality, tonal accuracy, presentation, etc etc.

You should also consider getting a good quality digital streamer/music streamer/network audio player such as Naim DS or Linn DS or Lumin, etc so you can download high resolution PCM or DSD materials and so you aren’t limited to CD quality (16/44.1). All music streamers/network audio players come with a built-in Tidal streaming app and are usually Roon ready. Tidal Hifi is a lossless (CD quality 16/44.1) music streaming service it uses FLAC compression algorithm whereas Spotify Premium uses MP3 compression and is lossy. Tidal Hifi is way better than Spotify Premium. Don’t know if you have access to Tidal music streaming service in Indonesia. Recently Tidal has released Tidal Master that enables us to stream hi-rez materials using MQA algorithm. But your DAC has to be able to decode and support MQA. I’m sure you’ve heard of MQA before?

Regarding speaker upgrade, I will add DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O 96 to your list. They will pair well with your Jadis integrated amp. The Vienna, Harbeth, Spendor & ProAc are awesome too.


Sounds like a plan!

However by acquiring one of a digital streamer/music streamer/network audio player such as the Lumin, Aurender, Aurallic, Linn DS, Naim DS, DCS, Esoteric, etc you have access to high resolution materials so you aren’t limited to standard CD resolution and you don’t have to stream Tidal or Spotify. Some streamers have DAC some don’t. The standalone streamer (no DAC) can be connected to a DAC, even the ones that have built-in DAC you can bypass their built-in DAC and use them as digital transport to a standalone DAC.
Those high resolution PCM or DSD are way better than lower resolution CD quality. No comparison.

Don’t know if you have SACD collections. Marantz Reference series line makes pretty impressive CD/SACD players but they are much more expensive than regular Marantz series like the one you have.
Marantz SA10 CD/SACD player from its Reference series line is pretty impressive but it retails for $7k here. Esoteric and DCS also make phenomenal CD/SACD players and transports but are at different price points and are priced much higher than the Marantz SA10 Reference series.