What speaker – under $10k – has the best timbre and tonal qualities?
Several years ago, a prominent reviewer had this to say as he was praising the natural and life-like tonal qualities of a particular speaker:
It’s [speakers] like these that make me question the priorities of audiophiles who relegate accuracy of timbre to secondary status. How are the richness and color of instruments, voices, ensembles, and textures to be reproduced in all their infinite variety and beauty if a loudspeaker has less than accurate reproduction of timbre? What do dynamics, imaging, detail, transparency, and the like matter if voices and instruments don’t sound like themselves?
I’ve come the same realization, late in the game. I recently made a lateral move from one of the most popular of recent speaker models to a different speaker, because it sounded so much more natural and realistic in timbre. I sacrificed a touch of image precision in doing so, but it has been well worth it. The sound is so much more engaging. It’s like going from a high-resolution black and white photograph – which is very detailed and impressive – to a color version of the same photo, but with slightly less resolution. The color version offers so much more in terms of realism.
So I’m now contemplating the purchase of what I hope will be my last speakers, with the objective of realistic, natural, and rich (but not artificially warm) tone being the primary attribute.
What speakers, under $10k, would you recommend? (I’m driving them with a PrimaLuna Prologue Premium)
Surprised nobody has mentioned the Spatial Audio Lab X5. At 97db sensitivity, you should have plenty of power with your Prima Luna. Open baffle design, very natural tonality once broken in and set up properly. 60 day in-home trial. I am very pleased with mine (Rowland amps, tubed BHK pre). I did listen to the Saphires, but found them to be too forward for my tastes (detail and imaging, yes; timbral accuracy, no). https://www.spatialaudio.us/xseries/x5 |
If you want to do it yourself, I build 2 big box for the Altec coaxial 604e + super tweeter and I test with many amps, and I love this speakers always do neutral in reproduction a magnifying glass of what an amp can do. Presently I test an old integrated Sima PW-3000, a 5 watts classe A and 50 watts AB total, I am bluffed the song play clean with good timbre, space and bass clean too, I think it's always have a good sinergy, |
