The Stirling Broadcast LS3/6s are very detailed and holographic, nevermind the specs, they're meaningless.
A cheaper option is the Revel Performa M106. Not as musical a speaker but less than half the price of the Stirlings.
Between these are the Focal Electra 1008Be, currently on closeout at Music Direct. |
Hello everyone. I'm here reporting my latest tests. First I must say I've learnt to things: i) How good this forum is! I posted in other forums as well but this is the one with the best responses, most opinions and helpful members and ii) How näive I was in regards to amps and speakers. I thought that with so many options I couldn't keep the same amp for years and I saw that au contraire, most audiophiles tend to change speakers oftenly and now it makes complete sense to me as it is quite impossible to have a better-for-all speakers.
With that being said, I auditioned the Wharfedale 225 and the Martin Logan LX16. The Martin Logan tweeter is the most treble-ish I've heard and as expected with almost no bass. It's a good speaker but nothing remarkable and the mid frequencies didn't sound as polished and refined as other speakers.
Now with the Wharfedale 225, I get why all the great reviews and recommendations from publications like The Absolute Sound and Stereophile. I've never heard before a speaker like this one. The sound creates a very nice atmosphere, it's a pleasure to hear it and basically all kind of songs (bad, medium or audiophile grade) sound good. I could hear them for hours. I guess that's how a MUSICAL speaker sound. The sound reproduction is not accurate or precise, the speaker has its own sound signature and it's a very pleasant one. As you might expect, the treble and/or high frequencies are a little off and notably, the voices sound like being between a veil but a very lush, luxurious veil. It's certainly not an analytical sound but it's musicality and warmth is addictive.
The bad thing is that, as wonderful as the Wharfedale 225 are, I couldn't live with them as my only speakers.
THEN today I had the opportunity here in my country to demo the KEF LS50 speakers in my own listening room in my house. I've read a lot of great reviews about this speakers and was way curious to hear all the fuss about them.
They are high on the treble, 2 or 3 degrees to being shouting piercing speakers and certainly none a hint of warmth. The imaged like crazy, even if I moved a little from my chair, the singer's voice in the center stayed there and the soundstage was quite wide. Not only could I hear all the instruments, I could almost pinpoint within inches the separation of one instrument from the other.
I browse through different songs with the pressure, of course, of being with the vendors by my side in my room but even then, while browsing indistinctly from song to song, I heard Herbie Hancock's Rockit song, not a favorite song of mine but one I've heard for many many years and when the synth line came in, the sound I heard from the synth line was one I've never heard before in all those years. I then swapped other speakers like the Martin Logans and the synth line was there but with added "trebliness" and other artifacts and the original sound was lost and, even more revealing, I heard the same synth line with the Wharfedales and they actually "transformed" that synth line into another tonality (believe me or not): it was like being made with another synthesizer and it sounded "tamed down", sounding inoffensive but warmer, richer, with an added layer of "lushiness".
My questions are: Could it be that the LS50 sound is just NEUTRAL, as real as it gets? Is these sound an analytical/detailed one?
Speakers like the much recommended ATC SCM11 could sound even more "neutral" or "analytical" without being more harshers and fatigue inducing?
I think I could live with a sound like the LS50 but with an even more clinical or colder sound I don't know if I could.
Does the B&W speakers provide that kind of neutrality/analytical sound of the LS50 and the warmth of the Wharfedales?
Before listening to the LS50 and after hearing the Wharfedales, I tough that maybe, as I really loved the Wharfedales sound but wanted more detail, if a high end option like Harbeth speakers could be a more refined, polished, detailed Wharfedales speakers but keeping the warmth and lush sound?
Maybe my solution is to have both the LS50 speakers and also the Wharfedales depending on my mood.
As you can see, the new option that I haven't contemplated before are the LS50 speakers and they could sell them to me immediately.
P.S. I also hear the Klipsch RP 600M speakers. They sound absolutely great with rock, 80s pop and such, but they lack a high end more detailed sound in my opinion and the soundstage it's quite narrow. Even then, I liked the RP 600M that much that in the future I'm planning to buy them as well and keep them in my BBQ/party area of my house
PLEASE excuse the long post and the wrong words I maybe have used as english is not my native language. Don't worry about your English. There are many English-as-a-first-language members who can't construct a single coherent sentence, so you're doing well! The KEF LS50s are NOT bright speakers. I find myself repeating this far too often. The problem is most do not set them up properly. They need to be placed on 24" inch stands (as recommended by KEF), even though that places the tweeters below ear level for most listeners. They should also be placed with absolutely zero toe-in. The LS50s were voiced with that setup in mind. A neutral off-axis response was one of the design goals of the Uni-Q driver after all. Unfortunately, zero toe-in and low placement height goes against conventional wisdom and they suffer a bad rap as a result. Dealers are clueless as to how to demo them. If you get a second listen to them under the correct conditions, you'll find a very different tonal balance - one that is mostly neutral - actually a hair on the warm side compared to many contemporaries. ATCs will provide even greater detail at the risk of being more fatiguing than the KEFs. This is because the KEFs are more forgiving of poor recordings while the ATCs were designed for surgical precision and absolute transparency. Speakers don't get much more transparent than ATCs. IME, Magnepans and any affordable electrostatics pale in comparison I found that Jean Marie Reynaud speakers (the Bliss Silvers at least) strike a nice middle ground between the musical and hyper-analytical. They're a little more transparent and detailed than the KEFs, yet remain somewhat forgiving. The tonal balance is similar to a *properly positioned KEF. The Harbeths I've heard are a little brighter than properly positioned LS50s, a little less detailed, and if anything, have a cool overall tonal balance (I suspect they're often mistaken as "warm" due to a lack of ultra transparency). If this were my search, I'd focus on ATC, ProAC, and PMC. |
Hi. In terms of making bad recordings (e.g. some awesome 80s and 90s tracks that while great were very bad/cheaply recorded or the ones made under the loudness war), being that both speakers (KEF LS50 and ATC SCM11) are known for being detailing, which one handle those kind of recordings best? By handling I mean, which makes those recordings sound more full/airy and/or less harsh or shouty? Thank you very much! Ls50s |
