Speakers for 2nd System!


Folks, I’m putting together 2nd system in a small room. This room doubles up as home office space.  The dimensions are 12’ D x 11’ W x 8’ H.  

I am open to recommendations for bookshelves or floor standers with a small footprint. I won’t be adding subs due to limited space. High efficiency 96db and above speakers are preferred. 

The system components so far, 

Leben CS600X - 28-32W

Technics SL - 1200M7B with Hana ML

Softone Model 4 Phono

Raysonic CD128 

Cables - Sternklang (ribbon) IC and Speaker with HIJIRI “Nagomi” Power Cords. 

Budget, I would like to stay under $5k but wouldn’t mind going over for something exemplary. Not interested in DIY projects or ugly stuff - aesthetics and high performance are equally important..lol! 

Thank you! 

lalitk

Showing 1 response by yyzsantabarbara

My office on the second floor has one side facing the first floor Livingroom. It is a small space. In my 12 x 11 x 9 previous room I used Magnepan LRS+. I liked the wall of sound effect of the Maggies, but the clarity of the sound was a bit below the previous KEF LS50 Meta speaker.

In my new smaller space, I decided to get a used Magnepan Mini speaker for $1000. This thing needs power, and my Sanders Magtech amp did not have a Standby switch, The Sanders is great on Maggies. The Schitt Wotan amp at $2k had the Standby switch and it sounded as good with more bass than the Magtech ($4k - $7k). 

The great thing about my current setup is that in my near-field setup (3 feet away) I am getting the wall of sound effect and somewhat of a headphone effect. The Maggies do not suffer too much from side wall reflections; main reason I went with them in a small space. The LS50 Meta is not as easy to setup as the Maggies.

The Mini is more detailed and cleaner than the LRS+. 

I also own the RAAL SR1a earphone and use it in the office (reason for the need for Standby on the Mini amp), That phone is incredible and I use a used $400 Schitt Aegir V1 amp to drive them. My preamp for both the Mini and the SR1a is the $700 Schitt Kara F preamp.

The secret sauce is the reference level Schitt Yggi+ OG DAC used for both systems. I also have a few tuners in the mix, including the Magenum Dynalab MD108T tuner ($8k).

Do not let the low prices fool you, I sold a $7k preamp, a $15k DAC, a $7k amp to get to this office system.

I think the Wotan amp may need to use XLR for best sound. I tried the Benchmark HPA4 preamp with RCA into the Wotan and it was not as good as the Kara F via XLR. The HPA4 via XLR was the best on the Mini and Wotan but is terrible with the RAAL SR1a. So, a bit of compromise. 

I have a photo of this setup in my A'gon virtual systems page.