Review: Silverline SR17 Supreme speakers

You don’t hear much about Silverline these days. Good to hear they are still in business. I owned a pair of the original Sonata floor standers many years ago and enjoyed my time with them.

@pdreher yup, Alan Yun is still doing his thing. He's less active on the show circuit, and has expanded his line of affordable speakers. Still making the SR17 and Bolero in Supreme editions. I'm thinking of auditioning the latter - based on my experience with the SR17, I suspect it could go toe-to-toe musically with the best under $20k.

Would be interesting to hear how these compare to JA Pulsars.  Both excellent speakers in the same price range. 

The original Silverline SR17 is also a honey. If you can get a pair for under $1500 and in good shape, I don't think there is a better value in hifi stand mounters. 

Silverlines are great, owned several .My problem is Spendor is in same price range .

Silverline Preludes are fabulous speakers though I recently sold my pair as I'd replaced them with very high efficiency speakers to mate with a small SE amp...still...took a long time to list them as I didn't want to see 'em go. I enjoyed a pair of Minuets at a friend's place one afternoon and was blown away by how excellent they sounded...cool company.

The Minuets are incredible for the size. I used to own them until they were dethroned by the Rega RS1. 

@seanheis1 -- in what ways did the Regas surpass the Minuets?

Rega’s are more alive...greater presence. Higher resolution but no fatigue. The Minuets are the mellower speaker. Slightly veiled. 

Rega tweeter is hands down better. Both have excellent midrange. Rega RS1 is much better in near field. Minuets excel at 6 feet or more. Minuets have the wider soundstage so for background listening they would be an excellent choice. 

@seanheis1 was this the original Minuet or one of the more recent revision? I agree the originals were very fun and musical but a little veiled. I think the latest Supreme Plus is significantly more transparent. And the Minuet Grand is in another league, albeit at 3x the price ($2k).

It was the Minuet Supreme. It was the pair that Alan brought to audio shows. He is a really nice guy.

The Rosewood finish is excellent. They definitely beat the RS1s in the looks department. 

TAWW I will be in the bay area in a few days and I would like to travel up to see Alan and take another listen to the SR 17's. In your review you compared the 17's to the audio vectors. Did you end up purchasing the audio vectors?
Thanks for your input !

Hi @char1 - I wound up buying both the Silverlines and Audiovectors. :) They are quite different but both extremely capable. My wife, an oboist, prefers the Silverlines over pretty much anything else she's heard, and for acoustic music I don't disagree with her. The Audiovectors have that amazing tweeter and nearly coloration-free cabinet that make them bracingly clean and incisive, and they play loud like you wouldn't believe, but don't have the body of the SR17. I'm happy to live with either of them but the Silverline is quite a bit easier to position and match to amp/cables whereas the Audiovector is very exacting. The Audiovector does very well close to the back wall though, handy in small rooms. The SR17 is more organic and holographic, with a bigger sound.

One thing I've heard a former SR17 owner not like about them is the cabinet isn't super rigid and well-brace and tends to resonate at high volume, causing some thickening/blurring vs. the Audiovector or in his case an ATC. I don't disagree with this assessment and if you listen to, say, rock or other heavier music at high volumes it might bother you - I prefer the Audiovector for that. For classical and some jazz I think it's less of an issue, and I admit the bit of woody warmth it adds to the lower midrange is quite consonant with a lot of music. 

Also the mounting requirements are a bit different given their different enclosure philosophies and construction - Audiovector prefers isolation (e.g. rubber pads) as is the fashion these days, Silverline is old school and prefers coupling (Blu-Tack) to the heaviest stand you can find, which helps ground the bass and control the cabinet resonance. The former can sound good on light, unfilled stands whereas the latter sounded best on my old heavy steel Osiris filled with sand. I currently use a Dynaudio Stand 6 with sand which is kind of in the middle and not as good as the Osiris, but my wife greatly prefers how they look. :)

TAWW
Thank you very much for your response to my questions. Your info really helps me with my decision making process for purchasing new speakers. One very persuasive comment was your wife's comment about the sound of the speakers. I guess I am going to have to get on the BART and go see Alan.

Best wishes
charlie

@char2 anytime, let us know how it goes!