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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)


wester17
rbyington711's avatar
rbyington711
60 posts
 
ATC
mrmanisundaram
81 posts
 
+1 for devore 0/93s
cdamiller5
98 posts
 
Wharfedale Elysian 4. Awesome
richtrem
1 posts
 
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,



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jcbaron
2 posts
 
I’m selling a pair of Sonics "Allegrias" I don’t know for the $$ if these can be beat! Top of the line German handmade speakers by Joachim Gerhard! Maybe a consideration at 20+ thousand USD but offered at $7900 barely broken in I feel they can’t be beat! Honest opinion Thx, Jim Listing ID: lisa6cfb
I did have subs with these noticing that the bottom although there, is not enough for my taste! Aside from that good luck matching these for the price...I have listened to many sets of speaks before buying I was blown away at the clarity of voice instrumental and piano, guitar we put on a CD last night and was asking myself why I am selling? We moved into a smaller home and they need a bigger room the soundstage is expansive you could play these in a church Holy Crap pardon the pun :) They are known for that, last home had over 20’ my living room now is 13’ and it needs a wall mounted sound bar to be honest! We live in Maine bring a CD/DVD best of luck! I am using MIT Matrix 3.5s cables and those are listed as well, maybe package deal for the right money I am willing to talk :) I was told by "sunny" when I bought my Class "D" amp Arcam AVR 750 doesn’t do it justice at 400 watts...so with that being said if you are sporting Class "A" monoblocks I would actually luv to hear them but prob won’t sell and end up returning home with them...Happy Holiday’s People!!! I will add Watching a movie with these is insane...Talk about Timbre hahahaa someones gets shot you jump, scary movies you’re screwed, the kids will leave the room I promise!!! If you close your eyes listening to Michael Cohn you can picture the instruments where they are situated on stage thats how much separation these achieve even with 38 pole cables I can’t Imagine Oracles or better...Don’t have the $$ to buy those so never got the chance to hear at that level...Noticed that this post was from 2015 hope your not still looking Geeze LOL
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