[revolink24]

I have a friend with a nice setup for their HT/listening room, hang on, I'll nab a picture.

See those dipoles, paired with the woofer towers? Those are vintage Infinity Reference Standard 1b (I believe, he never told me) and are absolutely lovely. There are some lovely vintage dipoles along the same lines that can be had for pretty decent prices. But be prepared to pay loads for a good quality amplifier - probably a very high output tube amp (that amp there is an audio-research tube amp)

Also, notice the hand-cut slats in the walls. There was lots of work put into room acoustics there

 

[catachresis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Donald North /img/forum/go_quote.gif From my experience, planar speakers (like planar headphones) have a distinctive and different sound from moving coil speakers. You have to go listen and hear if they are to your liking or not.

Thanks, Donald, for mentioning this. There are so many fans of planar speakers here that I was starting to think that I was nuts to suggest any qualms.

I owned a pair of Magnepans for a few years, and they were detailed, punchy, and sufficiently bassy. Frankly, though, I always felt that they lacked something by comparison with good quality but more conventional moving coil speakers.

To my ears, the difference *seemed* like the imaging of acoustic sounds -- voices, horns, acoustic strings, and even drums -- sounded more natural through moving coil speakers and less natural through planars, as though sounds emitted not merely from a specific place in the soundstage but also from a local source--the bell of a horn, the body of a violin, the mouth of a singer. The source of the sounds coming from my Maggies sounded less natural--flatter. Perhaps I'm being way to inarticulate here, and it's been a while.

 

[seacard]

Erik is right, the Orion is the greatest speaker I've ever heard, and I've heard many. I thought it was by far the best speaker at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest last year and bought the demo version. Here is the review of it:
http://theaudiocritic.com/plog/index...eId=2&blogId=1

If you can build it, it would be cheaper than $6,000. Or you can buy it built from Audio Artistry, and depending on the wood, it would probably be around there, though probably closer to $8K.

But beyond that, my favorites are the Avalon Isis and the Aerial 20T, but neither are even close to $6K.

 

[Bredin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuyDebord /img/forum/go_quote.gif You dont know what youre talking about! You cant be serious about this un-educated statement, if you havent experienced good speakers in average rooms with good placement, dont jump into this discussions and stay in your imaginary world!

It will give a different sound-stage. But it won't sound as neutral as a pair of headphones. The room stands for about 80% of the sound.

If you put expenssive speakers in a bunker, it will sound terrible. There will be alot of reflexes and the sound will echo a lot. The ear is more sensitive in time than spl, meaning that it's more important with perfect timing than a straight FR-curve.

Try a system in a well-treated room and come back later with your tail between your legs

.

 

[883dave]

Go forth and audition as many speakers as you can.
Everyone has an idea of what is the "greatest" speaker to them, but they may not be that "great" to you.
Take what others have to offer, compile a list and again...AUDITION as many as you can.
DO NOT buy speakers on the recommendation of others.

 

[GuyDebord]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bredin /img/forum/go_quote.gif It will give a different sound-stage. But it won't sound as neutral as a pair of headphones. The room stands for about 80% of the sound. If you put expenssive speakers in a bunker, it will sound terrible. There will be alot of reflexes and the sound will echo a lot. The ear is more sensitive in time than spl, meaning that it's more important with perfect timing than a straight FR-curve. Try a system in a well-treated room and come back later with your tail between your legs .

from the goosey comments, you sound like you are still an unexperienced teenager! come to this forum to learn! you should be posting in the "new generation audiophile thread" or go listen to your headphones in a bunker, this type of absurd and ignorant comments are not what we are used to here!!!! They just disturb the conversation.

 

[btf1980]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bredin /img/forum/go_quote.gif It will give a different sound-stage. But it won't sound as neutral as a pair of headphones. The room stands for about 80% of the sound. If you put expenssive speakers in a bunker, it will sound terrible. There will be alot of reflexes and the sound will echo a lot. The ear is more sensitive in time than spl, meaning that it's more important with perfect timing than a straight FR-curve. Try a system in a well-treated room and come back later with your tail between your legs .

Out of curiosity, what is your experience with high end speakers? What have you owned and what high end cans did you compare them with? Do you currently own a speaker system? If so, then what? What's your current headphone rig?

 

[JadeEast]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuyDebord /img/forum/go_quote.gif from the goosey comments, you sound like you are still an unexperienced teenager! come to this forum to learn! you should be posting in the "new generation audiophile thread" or go listen to your headphones in a bunker, this type of absurd and ignorant comments are not what we are used to here!!!! They just disturb the conversation.

Speakers do have to deal with their environment something that headphones don't. Please attack the comment and not the person making the comment, explain why his comment is wrong.

 

[Bredin]

Let's put it this way. Speakers in a normal room is normally not close as detailed as headphones, it hurts in your ears when you are playing loud. The bass is totally messed up with peaks and dips (+/-20dB is not unusual). The sound bounces off walls creating reflections = time delay. That ruins both the soundstage and actually the rest of the sound.

Music in a normal room might seem more "lively" due to the dips and tops in the FR. That can make the bass or/and the midrange more dynamic, but not close to neutral.

I've not had the chance to listen to so many systems in a good acoustic environment.
One system was built using a tact preamplifier and EQing the bass, Audionet as power-amp and Canton Digital as speakers(Canton digital won't preform good in a normal room, due being developed for a acoustic perfect room). My first impression was:
"This doesn't sound special at all." But after thinking a while, and listening to music in a normal room, the only thing in my mind then was: " It was perfect ".

Another system was some MBL speakers, boulder amplifier and a Weiss dac. I got the same impression of that system as the other. Nothing special at a first glance, but after a while it's like heaven. You will know what I mean if you turn a EQ on, and then putting it back to flat. It doesn't sound special or great till a beginning, but after a while...

I don't have the possibility to treat my room, that's why I'm into head-fi. My system consists of a Primare i20 amplifier, Primare v25 dvd-player, homemade loudspeakers with Scanspeak tweeters and Audio-technology bass/mid drivers(got a pair of B&W705 aswell, but they are not close as good).
And for head-fi I'm just staring. At the moment I only have Sennheiser hd25 headphones and a ESI MAYA44 soundcard, and playback via Foobar & ASIO. And my headphone system sound far better than my hi-fi system.

Spending alot of money on a system and nothing on room acoustics is just stupid. Almost as stupid as spending it all on cables.

 

[edstrelow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuyDebord /img/forum/go_quote.gif You dont know what youre talking about! You cant be serious about this un-educated statement, if you havent experienced good speakers in average rooms with good placement, dont jump into this discussions and stay in your imaginary world!

Uneducated! You appear totally unaware of the basic failing of loudspeakers.

Certainly speaker listening can be quite impressive, but is always lacking in accurate imaging because of crossfeed between speakers i.e. left speaker going to right ear and right speaker going to left ear.

These are the "phantom channels" of loudspeaker listening and this is not what the microphone hears and is a form of distortion. When you think about it it's 2 complete channels of irrelevant sound. 100% distortion.

Most of us have got used to this, unless you have tried one of the proprietary system designed to reduce it. The Polk SDA systems work fairly well. I still have their original model and in spite of my general preference for planars have not been tempted to replace them.

I am also in agreement about the problems of getting accurate bass. You cannot get around room resonances which create serious frequency response anomalies in smaller rooms.

These are 2 important aspects of sound in which good phones will lick even the best speakers since these defects are fundamental to the nature of speakers.

 

[melomaniac]

let me add my openly admitted bias (see signature). as several people here pointed out, planars and electrostats are something to seriously consider. when I was in my teens, I assisted a speaker developer in europe for a while. there was a cavernous test room with more than three dozen pairs, with all the measuring tools available then. what totally stood out was magnepan and quad. of course, it also depends on your taste in music - I don't have the best maggies, just the ones I could afford when I was looking for them; their strengths lie in vocals, instrumental, classical, electronica... they don't sound the way, say, hard rock or rap fans are used to hear their music. I'll add too that a neighbor with a to-die-for quad set-up recently changed to harbeth boxes and was happy... because his quads had gone to the shop too often. some equipment is more finicky than other gear. those are the ingredients of audiophilia... but for what it's worth, I would certainly second the maggie recommendations above.

 

[anetode]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! I've checked out the Linkwitz website and I really like the design of the Orion. The Magnepan sounds interesting too, since they're in Minnesota maybe I should just drop by the factory

The downside is that either system requires a good deal better amplification than I have now, meaning greater expense beyond the speaker cost.

To elaborate on my requirements:
12x17x9 room (matches w/ the Orion rec.)
120x8/190x4 amp
all digital sources / tubes for 'phones
Musical tastes range from sparse acoustic to over-processed pop, to jazz, experimental electronic, indie dance, house and metal. Occasionally classical piano pieces or ambient, so tone purity and atmosphere are both important.

The RMAF is coming up and I've never had a chance to sample more than three/four systems at one venue. Although I'm almost tempted to put down on something right now to avoid the temptation of various exotics at the show

 

[Bredin]

Forgot to tell what I think you should do. Spend some money on acoustic treatment, it will be pretty cheap to get a great improvement. It's like everything else. It's cheap in the beginning, but it cost a lot to get the the little extra out of it. The improvements will get smaller and the price tag will grow bigger.

It's very easy to DIY cheap absorbents. Just build a frame, stuff it with glass/rock wool. Than putting some fabric over it. I've made a pair and they cost like 20-50$ each. One is 150x60x10cm.

Just a picture to show how 200-300$ will drastically improve your sound.

 

[faberryman]

I would look at speakers costing up to $12,000 new and then buy the ones you like used off Audiogon where you can routinely find speakers at 50% of MSRP. Audiophiles are a fickle lot and usually move from component to component and speaker to speaker in search of perfection. They also tend to keep very good care of their equipment. If you buy used speakers, and after living with them for a while decide you want to try something different, you can resell them at not much of a loss. Just be sure you buy them from someone with good feedback. I have bought and sold a lot of equipment off Audiogon over the past ten years and never had a bad transaction. If you would like to buy new, I second the recommendation to listen to the Verity Finn. I heard them shortly after they were introduced at the Son et Lumiere show in Montreal and thought they were exceptional. Good luck.

 

[seacard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by anetode /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thanks for the suggestions everyone! I've checked out the Linkwitz website and I really like the design of the Orion. The Magnepan sounds interesting too, since they're in Minnesota maybe I should just drop by the factory The downside is that either system requires a good deal better amplification than I have now, meaning greater expense beyond the speaker cost.

Somewhere either on Linkwitz's website or on the Orion forum, you can find a list of people who have built or bought the Orion and have volunteered to allow others to audition their system. You should see if there is somebody in MN. Once you hear the system, you'll be hooked -- nothing else sounds like it.

As for the amp requirement, all you need is an 8 (or more) channel amp that pumps out 75 watts per channel (and probably not even that much). The ATI amp that everyone uses with the Orion is great and can be had fairly cheaply (at least compared to the amp you would need to get for the Maggies).