@mikelavigne
The purist and the early adapter. Black and white.
My room is also epic and I use dipole linear arrays which limit room interaction, ESLs with an order of magnitude less distortion than any dynamic driver.
I digitize my turntable and use digital RIAA correction which is more accurate than any analog circuit.
I would never buy another tape machine (I am being given an old Nagra for display purposes only) IMHO they all belong in museums next to Edison's cylinder machines. Recording in 24/192 is more accurate with less distortion not to mention that it is far less expensive, no tape and the software is far less expensive. The only reasons I play records is because I have thousands of them and I've been doing it since I was 4 years old.
Black and White. Two entirely different approaches to the same problem, the romantic and the modern. Both are valid for differing reasons.
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I went to Lyric HiFi in White Plains, NY in 1981 to buy a pair of DCM Time Windows - the then darling of the audiophile press. I asked to listen to them and the salesman obliged and I thought they sounded really good. The salesman then switched to a pair of Mission 770's and I was blown away. The boomy cabinet resonances of the DCM were gone, and the imaging was incredible, with the double bass palpably 6' behind the speaker and the rest of the musicians placed solidly within the sound field. Switching back to the DCM, the sound stage collapsed and the muddy bass returned. I bought the Missions on the spot and still have them today.
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@mijostyn
we have already kicked this can around completely. nothing more to say about it. look up our last go around and read my responses.
i have 8000-9000 Lps pressed prior to the late 70’s. and a couple thousand reissues since then without a digital component. then another 2000-3000 with some sort of digital step. not going to add another conversion. plus my Wadax digital would be negatively affected by another conversion. it’s purity sets it apart. no way any conversion would be transparent.
then there is my tape, which is not going to be digitized.
not looking for any consensus.
and never said my room is perfect, it’s only epic.
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@mikelavigne, mijostyn—
Gotta agree with mijostyn, even though I share Mike’s skepticism regarding DSP. In fact, I learned of a superlative digital (DSD SACD) "reference recording" from a post of Mike’s many months ago: Anna Netrebko’s DGG recital of opera arias called "Sempre Libera." Mike especially called attention to the glass harmonica on several tracks. (Note that this was before the recent scandal involving Ms. Netrebko’s support for Putin, and its consequences for her career.)
Turntables are beautiful technologies (or can be), and I do appreciate the nostalgic thrill of spinning LPs. But privileging vinyl for sound quality is really hard to defend rationally.
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Speaker built in the mid to late 80s and now are modern designed speakers. We should discuss speaker built in the late 60s to the 80s.
Speakers Like: JBL, Bozak, Rectilinear, Klipsch, Macintosh. These speakers were another breed of designs. Example JBL had terrible crossover and were basically a Rheostat divider and the. One of the earliest good speakers were Duntec's.
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@mikelavigne ,
The Trinnov is fine for home theater. I looked carefully at the Amethyst but Its bass management is severely limited and it is not programmable at a level that is acceptable. I waited 3 years to see what DEQX was going to do making a PITA out of myself in the process as my old TacT processor was dying. It did three months ago. At any rate I will be getting one of the first units. The DEQX is far more powerful and flexible than the Trinnov. It will do everything I want and more. It is also obviously built as well or better than any other equipment on the market. The technology is so powerful now that you can make a system sound anyway you want within the limitations of your other equipment, the speaker/room being the most significant. You can not make a point source system sound like a linear array and vice versa.
Mike, come on, every modern record and most of the rereleases you listen to are digitally modified. I just got a new pressing of Fontessa in mono (Modern Jazz Quartet) and the tape hiss is gone, disappeared. I wonder how that happened. All modern material with few exceptions are recorded digitally on a hard drive. I know that too many digital recordings are compressed into high volume pancakes. Vinyl is also to some degree to keep the volume above the noise floor.
I just recently recorded an audiophile delite from a friends collection in 192//24 with digital RIAA correction. Nobody can reliably tell the difference between the original and the recording. It is a great way to get music that is no longer being produced.
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Comparing one’s own system to speakers heard at audio shows, stores, or even other people’s listening rooms is questionable at best. To know if some product might improve the SQ of one’s own system requires auditioning it at home for at least a week’s worth of critical listening.
That said, I own Von Schweikert, PSB and Magneplanar speakers (all full-range floor standers) and half a dozen lesser monitors; I’ve auditioned Martin Logan "The Quest" and three different iterations of B&Ws, each for weeks. Finally, friends in our local audio club have uncompromising rigs of various kinds: stacked Quads, Harbeths, Dynaudios, KEFs, MBL 101 Radialstrahlers in a specially constructed listening "room" built in consultation with an acoustician that is larger and more opulent than most people’s entire homes.... And yet, I have not found anything I prefer to my Scientific Fidelity "Teslas," built in the early 1990s. A bad review in Stereophile pretty much killed the company. Recently, Bill Legall at Millersound restored the drivers for me. They cost a mere $1000 in 1992 (I got them used), and they even look great. My second system has settled on the Magneplanar 1.6 QRs installed in an acoustically treated room just right for them, but the Teslas in my living room remain my favorites.
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Lots I’m sure but Ohm Walsh series 3 and newer come to mind. Probably series 2 as well. It’s only the originals that came about in the early 80s that I can assert with confidence were not current big-league competitive. Those come up a bit short on resolution detail and accuracy. Many have been upgraded by users since which fixes that.
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+1Avalon and Tidal. The Rockport Arrakis is definitely one as well. Not made any more and I haven’t heard it but they get immense praise on the forums.
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Compared to forty years ago, most speaker companies are nothing more than cabinet makers that toss in off the shelf drivers. A year ago, I read a rave review of some $1800 a pair PSB speakers then did a check at Madisound and found they spent under $100 for all the drivers, the tweeters were about $30.
Oh, I’m sure all were “modified” for the builder.
I don’t know of any modern speakers that can outperform my full range acoustat 2+2, ADS 1230 or my energy Veritas 2.8’.
I have some custom built speakers that are modern ( 5 years old?) with $500 RAAL tweeters, they’re still not as good as the ‘stats or the 2.8’s, so much for modern…
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I've had a similar experience to the OP. I've been to 3 audio shows in the last few years and I have determined that it would take a huge amount of money to beat my current late 90's system - Thiel CS6 speakers, Krell KRC-2 and KSA 300S. These speaker are about 25 years old and when I come home and play the same tracks I heard at the show I sit there and shake my head in disbelief. Except for a very few speakers (MBL 101E Mk II or Von Schweikert Ultra 11's for example) my Thiels hold up against pretty much anything.
I have listened to rooms where the cabling and power conditioning cost more than my entire system and I wasn't impressed. BTW, I am lucky to have a large listening room but I haven't done any audiophile room treatment. I have lots of absorption and diffusion (book shelves, CD shelves, equipment racks, couch, chair, ottoman, desk, etc) and when I play a good recording the speakers absolutely disappear. I've had non-audiophile friends listen slack jawed and finally ask me, "how does it do that?"
I honestly don't think that the state of the art in playback has progressed much in the last 25 years unless you get into 6 figure components. There are a lot of wealthy people in the world who will pay big bucks for something that they can show off to their friends but an audiophile of modest means can put together a killer system for a reasonable amount of money.
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“I'm stuck on ESLs. If you can find Acoustat 2+2s in decent shape, add subs and really big SS amps. You will have an amazing line source system. ”
No need for either, keep them away from walls and they do well.
I used to run them off a nad 208 ( 600wpc into 2ohms) but found they like my tube jolida brc1000 best. I have the rare carver loudspeaker slipped in to give a little bass boost and it has hooography circuit optimized for planars, sounds better than anything else I have heard
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Instead of knowing you have the best possible system, waste time and money searching for something better.
@mijostyn
Honestly, i’m not searching. My speaker builder wants me to buy the new version. Im not really doing anything to make that happen. But if it does, then ok.
https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649999847-evolution-acoustics-mm-seven-twin-tower-speakers/
the new version has enough in common with mine they should be relatively plug and play in my room.
That search will never end. That question mark will drive you crazy.
no one ever knows if something is the best possible. that is a fools errand. But i have reached my goals (back 8 years ago in 2015) as far as my reference system sound and have no interest, none at all, in digitizing my signal path to find something different. i have invested in ultimate sources with astonishing purity. why would i dumb those down with dsp?
i have a separate home theater with Trinnov 9.3.6 Dolby Atmos for my dsp itch to be scratched, it’s not going to be part of my 2 channel room. multi-channel is already mucked up with dsp to begin with so i’m fine with that.
if i ever downsize and sell my home, and get a smaller 2 channel room with acoustic issues then who knows. dsp might be one choice if i can somehow hold my nose with my analog. but not in my current room. never going to happen.
btw, you and i have already done this same dance before. why do it again?
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PBN Montana XPS. Mine are circa 2007.
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@mikelavigne ,
There is no such thing as a perfect room. There is also no such thing as a perfect loudspeaker and there is certainly no such thing as a perfect analog crossover.
Each one of your speakers has its own amplitude curve and they are not the same, even if your room is perfectly symmetrical. This leads to smearing of the image. The secret is getting the two channels within 1 dB or better from 100 Hz to 12kHz.
You can use much steeper orders without any distortion in the digital realm and you can perfectly align all the drivers in phase and time regardless of where you place them.
In short, your speaker plus the DEQX will be way more accurate than any speaker these people can come up with. That sir is an absolute fact. I spent decades on your side of the fence. The single greatest development in HiFi since the advent of the KLH Model 3 is digital signal processing. The Pre 8 is currently the best processor available. It has a 64 bit floating point system and will stay above 192/24 regardless of anything it does. What is the difference? It is like trying to compare a good direct to disc record and a good studio record.
But, stay on your side of the fence. Instead of knowing you have the best possible system, waste time and money searching for something better. That search will never end. That question mark will drive you crazy.
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@jasonbourne71 @scm
I wish I’d kept my DCM time windows! They were my first real speakers. Got them in 1992 from an engineer that had refurbished them and drove them with an old high current Kenwood integrated. Had them for almost 20 years and sold them.
would love to get another pair just to recreate that feeling I got when I first had them.
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I am running Tidal Contriva Diacera SE speakers. They are 10+ years old, I have owned them for about 7 months.
Amazing, hard to imagine there is better available.
And they are beautiful!
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Ten years is a “bump in the road” especially for speakers. I wouldn’t have my qualms of putting any ten year old speaker up against new ones. The only issue with older speakers might be capacitors, but in ten years that’s probably wouldn’t be an issue. Also, a lot of older speakers are better made construction wise than more recent ones. All in all, I think this comparison is a non issue.
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To be honest, mot people have not maxed out the potential of their systems. The components most people use are inferior to what they can be using to improve the sound in their systems. We get to hear some many systems and components weekly and people are amazed when the hear our products and what their components sound like once we upgrade them. So IMO the limiting factor is the components uses. Our Class A mono block amplifiers were recently paired with a pair of Sonus Faber Stradivari Homage speakers. This is a guy who works for an audio store so he has access to many components. He purchased the mono blocks. The sound coming out of the speakers completely changed to his preference.
You have to keep trying and learning what makes sound do what it does,
Happy Listening.
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Wilson Maxx II and III - the best balanced speakers Wilson made prior to the current generation. Starting to show their age now compared to the newest Daryl Wilson designs but still an exceptional loudspeaker.
Other suggestions: LS3/5a, Quad ESL 57, ProAc Response 2.5
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Easy one.....JM Lab/Focal Mezzo Utopia's.
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Still have a pair of TDL compact monitors, 1988, with a good and powerful amplifier, they are beautiful! Original version of the mission 760s I still have, still one of the best sounding mini monitors IMO. The TDL Studio 1s needed Threshold power, but were amazing. Regret selling those… Working in a HIFI store, speakers I should have bought, but regrettably didn’t were, Morrison, Dahlquist, Tannoy, some of the original Paradigm’s, NHT 1.3 and 1.8. Oh and the Mission 767. And how could I forget my original entry into this world, my pair of Rogers LS4a. Proton 455 integrated, Phillips CD50 disc player, AKG k240 cans… the music of my college years..
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I love my Dunlavy SC-V speakers. I have them as front speakers in my really large media room. I play them in stereo all the time because they sound so good. They are really large and fill the room with sound. They are not high fidelity. My downstairs system has Sonus Faber Serafino speakers that sound special.
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I loved my ADS 1230s. Used them until very recently when they needed a repair that no one locally could do. There's only one person in Tulsa who repairs speakers and he didn't have the space to work on the large floorstanders. So sold them. Would still be using them otherwise.
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I’m still digging my 1978 Belle Klipsch. Yes, new tweeters and ALK Extreme Slope Crossovers. Technically not exactly the same speaker as new, but I love ‘em!
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illaherman: I read of your recent listening experience, which included a pair of Spender Classic 200TI speakers. I have heard the Spender Classic 200TI speakers on several occasions and they are highly capable and outstanding sounding speakers indeed. However, although more expensive then the Revel Salon 2s, I do believe that, from top-to-bottom, the Revel Salon 2 speakers are superior in every way, which includes it’s superior build quality, detail and transparency (Revel Salons true beryllium tweeters), dynamics, bass impact and extension, etc. If you think you’re hearing less detail from your Revel Salon 2 speakers than what you heard out of the Spender Classic 200TI speakers you heard at the audio store, then the deficiency in detail, I’m positive, doesn’t lay with the Salon 2 speakers. I would reevaluate my cabling and components if I were you. Happy listening!!!
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The Altec Lancing Voice of the theater speakers are used in the reverb chambers under Capitol Records in LA.
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@judsauce
Couldn't agree with you more. I have managed to incorporate almost every model of Dunlavy(s) in the various systems throughout the house. I have been to several Audio Shows and there are a lot of impressive speakers. Many do some things better, but it's hard to find any that does everything as well.
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MBL-101 one of the top few full range speakers ever made
stilll exceptional when setup properly.
anther is the Infinity IRS dual panels per speaker
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I love my Paradigm Reference Studio 40s. V.2 is the sweet spot IMHO. Made around the year 2000. l like them so much, I bought a second pair, they are the headliners of my two primary systems. Oh, and they sound much better when bi-wired. YMMV. Enjoy the music.
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Avalon, MBL 101E Radialstrahler, Dunlavey.
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A well set up pair of Altec Valencia's.....with Great Plains Audio crossovers.... not to shaby even by today's comparable offerings.
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I have Revel Studio 2‘s with a pair of Rythmik subwoofers as my 2-channel and it’s hard to part with them. I had a recent situation that caused me to realize that money matters in sound, but at a certain point, for me it doesn’t matter enough to pay substantially more.
I was at our local high end audio store recently and he loaded up what he said was the best system he had at the moment, in slightly used equipment.. The speakers were Spendor Classic 200Tis, amp: darTZeel NHB-108 Model 2, preamp:darTZeel NHB-18NS, and a suite of Merging Technologies +NADAC,clock u, plus,Merging Technologies +NADAC /+POWER MkII…cables etc.
it was extraordinary. I felt lucky to listen and enjoy it all. When I got home and listened to the same material on my system it was very enjoyable, certainly a bit less detailed soundstage and imaging. However, I felt like the Revels and rythmik subwoofers were hard to argue as comparable quality, not same quality, but a heck of a value set up, for a used price of roughly $11k.
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Perfectly happy with my 70s JBL L222 Disco.
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I used to own Apogee. They were exceptionally great sounding speakers for the money… very worthy of much higher quality inputs than many speakers. While I don’t regret getting rid of them, they were exceptional. The baby grand and grand… even more so.
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My 32 year old Apogee Duetta Signature ribbons still blow me away every day.
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My Early 2000’s Gallo Acoustic reference 3.1s will never leave my home. Imaging to die for, finese, brute strength and a truly flat response down to about 25 hz.
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@mikelavigne
not a chance.
my room is epic, my set-up and room tuning is epic, any sort of dsp would be wasted and regressive in my particular room and signal path. no matter the acronym
Seems a logical assessment. Could very possibly be a backwards move.
Charles
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You might just surprise yourself. DEQX is recruiting 120 audiophiles to beta test the programming of their new processor, the Pre 8. It has a programmable 4 way digital crossover in it. Retail in the US is going to be $13K but they are giving them to the beta testers for $6K. Cheap entertainment! I do not think they have yet reached 120. Have a look at it. https://www.deqx.com/
@mijostyn
not a chance.
my room is epic, my set-up and room tuning is epic, any sort of dsp would be wasted and regressive in my particular room and signal path. no matter the acronym.
the only advantage to a new set of speakers is the theoretical idea that a new speaker has evolutionary better performance. one of my large concerns is whether i can accomplish as fine a speaker<->room integration again. it took me 9 months before....and that was after i was in my new 'perfect' room for 11 years improving it.
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My Dunlavy SC 3'S that I bought in the late 90's will kick the crap out of all these current speakers, with there built in amps and sophisticated cabinets. I've upgraded all amps, preamps and digital, and these speakers still sing like birds.
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@mikelavigne
That itch is tough to ignore. Sometimes the newer system winds up being worse!
Speakers like that are very expensive to make and the market for them is limited. There is certainly a point of diminishing returns and you are well past it. Once you are use to that amount of bass power it is hard to revert to something smaller. You might try working with them, not just changing amps or other electronics. The two most difficult parts of speaker design are the enclosures, which I seriously doubt you want to mess with and the crossovers which you can easily play with, for fun! You might just surprise yourself. DEQX is recruiting 120 audiophiles to beta test the programming of their new processor, the Pre 8. It has a programmable 4 way digital crossover in it. Retail in the US is going to be $13K but they are giving them to the beta testers for $6K. Cheap entertainment! I do not think they have yet reached 120. Have a look at it. https://www.deqx.com/
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Somewhere I heard you were trying to sell them?
@mijostyn
i did list them for sale on Audiogon for a couple of months, my ad makes it clear i’m good whether they sell or not.
honestly i am torn, and all my friends think i’m nuts to sell them. i suppose it would be fun making a change after 11 years. but i still love what i hear. the reason i thought about selling is that Evolution has a new model being introduced. it is very very good. probably an incremental step up. but lots more money and i just retired so that’s an issue. so i am on the fence.
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@mikelavigne
Somewhere I heard you were trying to sell them?
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I also bought DCM TW`s paid $660 too, went in to listen to Polk Monitor 10`s
and came out with the TW`s...not close and an NAD 3020 to power them too 👍
Anyway but back to the question:
My Revel F52`s might fend off some pretty decent new speakers that are out there.
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I still run Aerial 10T, but recently I snatched B&W N802 for just $300 at the church garage sale barely used. I think they were built around the same era as my 10Ts.
Now I'm at the very big quest on which ones are remaining and which ones are for sale.
Very possible, that there will be another listening room with Macs and B's.
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@mijostyn : I agree! The DQ-10's we're game-changers for the speaker market. Until the Time Windows came along a few years later! BTW I have the TW's AND DQ-10's. The last awaiting space for set up.
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In general, I have to agree. It has been my observation that in ten years any component category advances make a very sizable and worthwhile improvement to upgrade. This does not mean the old stuff is not satisfying.
The easiest for me to relate to is amps. I have owned and upgraded Pass amps since about 1980…every ten years. Each time I questioned if they could be worth the upgrade and each time I was so impressed I had to. I have also experienced this in speakers (owning 20 year old 10 year old and now contemporary), preamps. Of course digital really big time changes.
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I forgot to mention Dahlquist DQ 10s. Amazing loudspeaker for the price, then and now.
I'm stuck on ESLs. If you can find Acoustat 2+2s in decent shape, add subs and really big SS amps. You will have an amazing line source system.
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