I've recently gone into retirement. I am a 52-year-old diehard audiophile. I've had just about every statement level speaker the American market has offered over the last 10 to 15 years. The speaker I have found the most satisfying overall is my presently owned modified pair of Maggie 3.6R. I've also had their 20s and started with the Mg 3A. for my second favorite speaker I would have to pick the Avalon radian HC, and not the Eidolon( I had problems with the ceramic midrange distorting with dynamic vocals and the base was not perfect). I had dozens and dozens of conventional and electrostatic speakers so many I could bore you with the list. So let's just say I've been around the block a few times.
Let's assume that I made no mistakes meeting the speakers with the proper equipment, power conditioning and acoustical environment treatment. I have been mostly a tube person but I switched over to the new passlabs equipment because I found that I am the equivalent sound or better than my reference tube amplifiers, without the heartbreaking experience of blowing up and $2000 tube replacements.(As I said I am retired now, I can't afford the maintenance fees anymore.
What I'm asking of my fellow audiophiles that have been listening with reference great audio systems is that they e-mail me back and give me their opinion on what conventional loudspeaker they would own if they had say $20,000 or so to spend(20,000 retail). Semi-full range down to say 35 Hz or so.
I'm going to keep the Maggies but, they don't feel the need when it comes to wanting a more compact/dynamic speaker that I could also drive with my Belcanto SET. Although, they don't need to be ultra efficient.
I would really appreciate anybody's input, I would find all of your input invaluable in making my decision.
by the way what do you all think of the Grand Veena 3A speaker. Is it better than anything for under $20-$30,000?
Try Chario Sovran, or Chario Serendipity... Far more musical than any listed here, except may be B&W 802 D3. Also if you keep an open mind see if you can audition Eminent Technology 8bs. These are $2500 per pair, but boy do they sound like a $30 grand speakers!
I'm going to echo bassdude's post about the Linkwitz systems. I fell in love with the big Avalon loudspeakers years ago when I first heard them. Terrific loudspeaker, but at $35k/pair at the time, something I couldn't begin to imagine ever owning.
The Linkwitz LX521 at least their equal if not their superior and you can DIY build it for about $3000. You have to add 10 channels of amplification, but the recommended amp by Linkwitz from ATI prices at around $1700, so for an investment of less than $5000, you can have sound equal or better than anything Avalon makes, or Maggie for that matter, and for both those guys, you're going to run a $10,000 amp to drive 'em.
I run a pair of Linkwitz Orions, though surpassed by the LX521, I have yet to entertain a visitor to my home who did not leave without envy. I still marvel at how good they sound.
If I had the cash, I would get the sanders sound systems speakers, or a massive pair of reference dynaudio's,
or or if I had the time, a pair of cerwin vega 2000-15's, replace all the mid ranges with dynaudio drivers, and a nice beryllium tweeter, add more damping to interior of the speakers, re-do crossovers, you would have such a beautiful wall of sound. Or those pendragon brand, those 1812 speakers are amazing, and at such a fair price for what one gets, save money and still have ref sound. My 2 quid
After tormenting myself for several months, auditioning lots of floor standing speakers, I became smitten the first time I heard the new Focal Sopra No2's.
I was lucky to order them just after they first became available in the U.S. and have been enjoying them for over two months now. My dealer says they have a six month wait for them now.
These speakers have enormous amounts of detail in the mid and high frequencies, most high-detail speakers made me really exhausted quickly, not these. They also have huge sound stage. The bass that they have is excellent and very well integrated with the other drivers, but only goes so low (no problem for me, I'm wedded to a pair of excellent sub woofers).
Two cautions. I heard a pair driven by electronics that I'd not characterize as "smooth sounding", with that incredible tweeter, I thought it was "too much". Also, I'm not sure the speakers would sound so good in a smaller room, as I auditioned a pair of 1038BE's in a room about 12 x 14 and they sounded very "constricted".
It is not about a name, it is all about quality. During the show of the B&W 802 D3 with Classe the stage depth and width was narrow. Not like the best highend what can create a holographic stage. So yes you miss the 3D feeling. When you are aware of properties, audio becomes very predictable.
I don't like the Ikea look of the D3 either. The demos of the 804 D3 and 802D3 sofar were extreemly poor. We will take a liten to them in shops soon. We are not convinced and we doubt if this will become a succes!!
Not yet...trying to find time this week. I must admit however that I am partial to my D2 woodwork and spikes compared to the more techno D3 look and smaller built in spikes. Kinda looks more home theatre👀
OK, for sheer scale and value I would say Maggie 20.7's. Totem WIND DESIGN SERIES would also be a great choice with cash to spare. B&W802D2...not the new D3's....get em while they are liquidating them...an absolute steal for a high end speaker.
I'd like to audition a pair of avantgarde or used Jadis Eurythmie. If these did not wean me off the dark side I'd just upgrade to ohm 5015 save 10 grand and call it a day. 😎
Eggleston Andra-3 (better than the 2's which blew everyone away not long ago), or Magnaplanars (3.7). Or some variation of these two suggestions. IMO you either buy box-speakers or planar speakers, although there are even more exotic designs if you are particularly adventurous (surround-sound like the MBL's for ex.). Then of course there are the horn-mid and tweeter designs, but truthfully few audio stores put them out there for an audition.
@Ebm, I agree the S3's and S5's are coming up at very good prices in near new/mint condition. Also referring back to the above post about line source speakers, I would point out that development of point source speakers hasn't stood still over the last 25 years. Magico is a Company at the top of their game who have been constantly developing their drivers, cabinets, crossovers and know how for over a decade. With the technology Magico employ such as Carbon Nano-tube cones and large extruded aluminium cabinets & their manufacturing capacity and quality control, design talent and quality trump speaker type/layout.
This is some interesting specs I found on the carver amazing line source speakers,
Bob Carver ALS Amazing Line Source Loudspeakers
Bob Carver announced the Amazing Line Source(ALS) Loudspeakers, which claim to present a huge and majestic soundstage that captures the complete sense of acoustic space that helps make music come to life in our listening rooms. Bob Carver believes you will hear beautiful sound images inside that larger acoustic that will seem so real it will be downright spooky. There will be a soundstage that extends far back from the speakers, and it will be much wider than the speakers.
A solo female singer will appear center stage, up and back slightly, perfectly focused, singing her heart out as if she were in our room, all the while being inside that larger acoustic bubble. It is very, very spooky.
How it works A line source speaker is simply a speaker so tall and acoustically long that we, the listener, hear a speaker that goes all the way to infinity. Up to infinity and down to infinity, resulting in what a scientist would call a “perfect wave launch.”
The wave from the speaker sounds as if it emanates from a gossamer thin filament running from below the center of the earth to beyond the moon. A pure cylindrical sound wave.
When we listen to such a wave, we find that we can hear musical nuances that we often cannot hear at all using conventional speakers.
“An analogy is to consider a thin pole that is eight feet tall, extending from floor to ceiling. On the pole are mounted 22 lit birthday candles, each a light source. Additionally, imagine the floor and ceiling to be perfectly polished mirrors. When we look down a the bottom of our speaker, we will see lit candles reflected in the mirror continuing all the way down to minus infinity. If we look up towards the top of our speaker, we will see the reflections of candles that go up to plus infinity. Here's the best part: All these reflections are real light sources to our eyes, as real as any real candle; we can read a book by their light. The candles in the mirrors make light just as well as the actual candles in the room on that pole. Absolutely non-intuitive! Now instead of candles, imagine that we replace them with lots of small loudspeaker drivers. The same holds true for speakers and candles alike; the speakers in the mirror make just as much sound as the speakers in the room, and behave for sound the same way as the candles behaved for light.”
“Here is the next best part: we can remove the polished mirrors and just use the floor and ceiling to make the line source work perfectly,” Bob Carver explains.
The ribbon looks like it's from Parts Express Of course it is. Bob Carver designed that ribbon over thirteen years ago for a loudspeaker he ended up developing and calling the Sunfire Cinema Ribbon. The ribbon was built in China by Hi-Vi for Homni, my Chinese supplier for drivers at the time. Shortly thereafter he sold the design to Hi-Vi as part of a joint cooperation agreement for manufacturing tooling, and subsequently it was delivered into the public domain by my intent. Hi-Vi, under the joint cooperation agreement, markets it worldwide and now sells it to Parts Express. Again, it was originally designed for Bob Carver's Cinema Ribbon and is still used in Cinema Ribbons today. It is truly an amazing ribbon, says Bob.
121dB SPL 121dB SPL is an enormous sound pressure level but the numbers that teach us how it does that are comprised of simple arithmetic. First,a pair of the small woofers as utilized in the tried-and-true Cinema Ribbons produce a loudspeaker that has a sensitivity of 89dB SPL. The Cinema Ribbon was designed to absorb all the power that my 200 watt per channel amplifier could deliver. At 80 Hz it's peak-to-peak excursion is 0.48″. The Amazing Line Source speaker has 22 of these drivers per channel. Since each driver can take 100 watts (92 watts with crossover losses), how much can each Amazing Line Source speaker handle? Well, 92 x 22 is 2,024 watts. At those power levels and at 80 Hz, those woofers are moving back and forth 0.48″. Or, from another point of view, 80Hz/4 (20 Hz) allows equalization and yields flat response down to 20 Hz with a 450 watt per channel amplifier, assuming a room gain of 8dB at 20 Hz (Theoretically it's 3dB per boundary, and there are three boundaries in a room for each speaker).
Low Frequency Response A line source that goes from floor to ceiling is a weird, spooky, and interesting thing. Imagine that your floor and ceiling are mirrors, and the line source has 22 candles instead of woofers. If we look at it, we will see candles going up infinitely to the sky and down infinitely below. The amazing thing is that each reflection of each candle generates real light and so do the reflected sound sources of the line array. Spooky because it seems as if it's something for nothing, and it almost is. The same holds true for the ribbons. Each ribbon, on speech and music, can easily absorb 200 watts rms and there are thirteen of them per channel. Finally, 200 watts x 13 = 2600 watts – a walk in the park for these ribbons!
Sensitivity -96dB Each time the area or the displacement is doubled – all other things held constant – the sensitivity increases 6dB. Here is the arithmetic: One ribbon = 89dB. two ribbons = 95dB. Four ribbons = 101dB. Eight ribbons is 107dB, and 16 ribbons would be 113dB sensitivity IF the voltage across each were held constant. Since these ribbons are in a complex series/parallel configuration we must subtract 17dB because the voltage across each ribbon is substantially lower (approximately 20% of the original voltage) yielding 96dB SPL sensitivity. The precise calculation is as follows: There are thirteen ribbons, so 10 x log(13) is 11dB. 11 + 89 = 100dB, and the crossover throws away 4dB, for a net of 96dB sensitivity. That's the science.
“Distortionless” Strictly speaking, nothing is distortionless. However, in hi-fi, if the distortion is below our threshold of audibility we can color it gone. If it's gone, we can't hear it and sufficiently distortionless to call it thus.
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Specifications
Height: 8 FeetCabinet: 1 piece extruded aluminum cabinetNumber of front firing 8″ ribbons: 13Number of side firing 4″ high excursion drivers: 22Rated Power: 2,000 wattsSPL: 121 dBSensitivity: -96 dB
I remember the carver amazing speakers, I listened to that model for years my buddy owned back in the mid 90s, those sounded good, if the line source model is significantly better, they are on my list to listen too.
Without a doubt... my choics would be the Linkwitz Orion's or LX521's - just incredible in all respects!
Only caveats are: they aren't pretty, so you may have to dedicate a separate room to them to appease your wife... and... they require an active crossover, and separate amplification for each driver.
But, in exchange... you get "live, life-like sound!"
I propose that it is not possible to know what a system sounds like simply by knowing what the components are or how much the system costs. We are chasing the dragon, trying to find something we heard a long time ago. There, now I feel better. ;-)
I have the Raidho D2 and rebuilt QUAD ESL57. I'm really a sucker for correct timbre and sound staging/imaging. Now I'm really considering the Carver ALS that just came out. Very unique design. One can play these at ear bleeding levels (not that I ever would) without worrying about damaging the speakers like my D2 or QUAD. It would be great for large scale music like symphony, organ, and rock.
ARCA from Cadence , India , Electrostatic panels with a woofer - Hybrid - would be worth a listen . I own a pair with lots of upgrades on them and find them very involving . I do not have much idea as to cost in USA.
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