The MP3s I have are mostly 320 kbs, some VRB and a minority are 128 kbs. What's the lowest MP3 bit rate would you recommend to play on speakers such as Adam A5s / A5Xs, would it be lower for none studio speakers such as B&W 685s?
Yeah I agree about the Yamaha, it does have too much sales talk. Any ideas on an alternative?
So you wouldn't recommend A5Xs to be used more generally, by somebody listening from different locations?
I never heard the ribbon tweeters, would say they are an upgrade to the usual type?
There's very little difference in sound quality between a 128kbps and 320kbps mp3, 128kbps is fine for either set of speakers just if you listen really carefully 128kbps might sound a bit less natural and depending on how good your hearing is you might notice a tiny bit of the frequency roll off past 16-17khz.
The behringer a500 is a good performing amp http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/A500.aspx, the samson servo amps http://www.samsontech.com/samson/products/power-amplifiers/servo-series/servo300/ perform even better but are said to be unreaible I've had no trouble with mine so i suspect the problems were fixed in later batchs ,theres specs and measures on the last pages of there manual.
Ribbon tweeters have very wide horizontal dispersion and very tight vertical dispersion, there not suitable for filling a room with sound , they are also higher in disortion http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Tweeters_dist-test.htm , http://www.zaphaudio.com/nondomes/ , it's disortion and there dispersion which gives them there unique sound.
They would be a very slight upgrade if positioned properly in a room with poor acoustic properites, there dispersion means the sound interacts slightly less with the room acoustics.
