2. speakers
  3. 1253119327

Speakers in 10-15K price range for Classical music

Well I am in the market for speakers. My music choice is primarily classical and then a little bit of everything else such as jazz and soft/alternate rock. I started with a budget of 5-7K and auditioned Maggie 3.6, Quad 989, Spendor S8e and so on, but quickly realized I couldn’t get what I was looking for in these speakers. They all did pretty well on solo or few instruments but could not nearly reproduce a symphony (Mahler’s fifth, or Tchaikovsky’s sixth or Schubert’s ninth) with any authenticity. This was about a year ago. Since then I had stretched my budget and am now looking for speakers in the 10-15K price range.

Now here’s the challenge. I didn’t like the Thiel, B&W or Wilson sound. I had liked Maggie 20.1 in the past, but can’t find any dealer nearby that carries them for an audition. Heard the Vandersteen 5a for about 10 mins and they are pretty convincing, but I need a proper audition and then it’s still beyond my price range. Now my question is what other speakers I can look at for the kind of music I like?

Thanks much in advance, for your help.

Oh, my system is Krell SACD and 400xi Integrated Amp. Will upgrade the amp eventually, but will need to wait for another year at least :)
neal1502

Showing 2 responses by karelfd

karelfd
476 posts
 
Have to agree on Shahinian here. Given that Richard Shahinian spent probably half of his life in concert halls and actually conducted orchestras if I'm not mistaken, if these speakers can do one thing it's classical. Altough this is at least 6 years ago, I have heard impressive presentations with both Hawk and Diapason (with Croft and Jadis amps).

One that would have to leap to one's mind, if you can still find it: Bösendorfer, the VC7 may just fit into your budget. The bad news, when Yamaha took over Bösendorfer they decided against continuing the speakers production. The good news: mastermind Hans Deutsch is now building basically the same speakers with piano builders Joseph Brodmann Group (itself headed by former Bösendorfer people). So watch out for the Brodmann brand too!
karelfd
476 posts
 
Hi, likely you will have acquired speakers by now, in that case just for information (and for the benefit of anyone doing a search for speakers/classical).
I just returned from the Munich High End show where there were 2 rooms that "transcended" the rest of everything I heard in that they managed to present music as opposed to the others that showed gear performing music - some of which exceptionally good, in honesty.
Those 2 rooms were Tidal and Brodmann.
As you might have expected, Brodmann mainly played classical music (I also heard Rodrigo y Gabriela though, which was delightful) through their flagship speaker in the brand new "Joseph Brodmann" series, the JB 205. This was with Viola Labs amps and a comparatively humble Electrocompaniet EMC1 as source in a room that was certainly not the best acoustically. In one word: astounding! True, the JB 205 is a EUR 56k affair, but I'm pretty sure, the musical gene will be carried forward in the smaller JB models.
Unfortunately, the English pages of their website don't seem to work, nevertheless, here's the link:
http://www.brodmannacoustics.com/index_eng.html
PS: based in Vienna (where else!) they also have s representation in Ferdinand, Indiana.
PPS: this is also a manufacturer to have a serious look at for someone looking for uncompromising AV inwall solutions.
More to discover