Bookshelf Speakers

[pbirkett]

Mission M51 owner here, and happy with them too, well suited to my bedroom, plenty of bass power, very lively speakers if not the most natural or realistic, but certainly lots of fun.

The Quad 11L's I auditioned alongside the Missions, and they are the most overrated speakers of all time IMO. So bland and boring. If you want that type of sound, save a few quid and go for the cheaper Wharfedale Diamonds.

The KEF Q1's and B&W DM602S3's were among others I'd heard alongside the Missions, and I could probably have been pretty happy with either of those. The Missions were a bit more upfront than the KEF's and I like upfront. The B&W's possibly a bit more upfront than the Missions in the treble, and did deeper bass, but not as fast or punchy, and too big for my room.

Would like to have demoed the Monitor Audio Silver S1 and Dynaudio Audience 42. I also have liked Rega loudspeakers when I heard them

The B&W Nautilus 805 I heard once and it seemed a bit overpriced for what it was, a bit cold sounding to be honest, might have been synergy problem there.

The best bookshelf speakers I've ever heard were the Sonus Faber Cremona Auditors. They seemed to do very little wrong to my ears. The speakers, and the rest of the kind of system you'd need to accompany them is, sadly, way way out of my league.

 

[D-EJ915]

Quote:

The B&W Nautilus 805 I heard once and it seemed a bit overpriced for what it was, a bit cold sounding to be honest, might have been synergy problem there.

B&Ws are notorious for needing powerful amps before they open up.

 

[vrao81]

I'm a big fan of Monitor Audio, I currently have the Bronze B2 and have listened to the awesome Silver S1 several times. I also like Energy, having owned the C-1. NHT and PSB are two other brands I like. Vandersteen and Bohlender-Grabaebener (spelling?) are also good. Most of the other speakers I have listened to have been pretty much forgettable.

 

[tbutterf]

Mission m71!!!

Incredible bass...stylin' too.

 

[rsaavedra]

Quote:

Originally posted by pbirkett The Quad 11L's I auditioned alongside the Missions, and they are the most overrated speakers of all time IMO.

The best speakers (bookshelves) I've heard so far are Revel Performa M20's in a store in Seattle. To be fair, they were connected to awesome equipment (Krell electronics) and the room was also large and well treated for auditioning speakers.

I wonder if you heard the Quads in even conditions with respect to the Missions. Even assuming exactly same electronics when comparing them (e.g. using A/B switching), different bookshelf speaker brands might have different optimal freq. responses depending on their towed-in angle. Also, if the room has poor acoustics, then just one feet off possibly already results in a very unfair position for one speaker vs. the other. That goes besides equipment matching, and the fact that the Quads are allegedly extremely revealing, so I guess poor recordings, or low quality electronics might make them sound worse than less revealing speakers. Well I'm sure you know all that, but just playing devil's advocate (possibly the missions do sound better despite all of the above).

The Quad electrostatic speaker, however, is universally regarded as one of the best sounding speakers of all time. My hunch is that Quad's L series just can't be dissapointing. I hope to audition some Quad 12L's this coming weekend by the way, will write my impressions afterwards.

Cheers,
Raul

 

[pbirkett]

rsaavedr, the Quads were indeed demoed with the same electronics, and in the same hifi demo room as the Missions (as well as the B&W and KEF speakers) and they sounded a LOT worse than any of them to me. They were all more detailed than the Quads, which seemed to have severely rolled off bass and attack (not surprising given its tiny 5-inch driver), what seemed to be a lack of treble too (a relatively cheap silk dome tweeter). When I looked at it, I felt that most of the money went into the cabinet, which looked good and was well built, but unfortunately, it just sounded so lifeless compared to any of the other.

The system used to demo was the Rotel RA-01 amp and RCD-02 CD player. All of the speakers apart from the Quads sounded really good. I dont buy that the Quads are harder to power than the B&W because they are known to be pretty demanding speakers, and much larger.

Ironically, I have also heard the Quad 21L's, and they were MUCH better in my opinion.

 

[Lisa]

On the defence of pbirkett.

I've auditioned a pair of Quad speakers too. But I don't know the model. were €400 a pice or something. (I paid in the same store €200 for a KEF Q1 speaker, just so you have a reference.) They sounded not very good to say the least.
Maybe it was the room acoustics but I couldn't believe that these were this expensive.

I did audition them all at home with a NAD C 350 amp, C 451i CDP. And the Dynaudio 52s sounded good although totally not my taste, so did the Chario's(really if you get a chance go listen!!!) and the KEF's of course.

But again, don't remember the model (they impressed me that much

) and it could have been room acoustics.

 

[rsaavedra]

Thanks for the feedback Pbirkett and Lisa, now I think I'll audition the Quads with some healthy prejudice I had maybe too positive an opinion about them without having heard them just because of Quad's reputation with their electrostas, maybe your feedback helps balance things out in that sense for me.

I only think there are too many variables when auditioning speakers, too many things that are too easy to miss or overlook, quite easy to blame the speakers for anything not sounding right that might not be their true signature. I have that caution now out of personal experience, just with my own Paradigm Titans. Let me share that example.

Initially I had them in my room very much towed in, so that their axes crossed right in front of my face when I was sitting at the sweet spot, following many audiophiles recommendations for general speaker positioning, optimal imaging bla bla etc. I had them like that actually for a few months, even though I was feeling they sounded quite open and bright in general. Well brighter than what I heard in the store at least, and brighter than my true taste. And despite the fact that my living room is not really "bright sounding". That "signature" remained in my setup even long after the break-in week, all the way while I was making several painstaking measurements calibrating and flattenning the bass response of two subwoofers in my system, and watching movies, listening to music, and calibrating again etc.

When I went through the painful treble warble tones in Stereophile CD 2 (earplugs highly recommended) using a Radio shack SPL meter -and using the correction factors it needs according to Rives Audio, I realized that at the sweetspot in my sofa the treble around 5KHz - 7KHz range was about 6 dB's louder than anything else in the rest of the whole response. For a moment, I was almost cursing Paradigm for reporting flatness in the Titans +/-2dBs on axis all the way from 60Hz up to to 20KHz. Or was that an artifact of my electronics/cables? And for a moment, I almost wished I had an equalizer to flatten that irreverent bump. But most fortunately, right then by just turning the speakers so that they faced almost due front instead of being towed-in, this issue dissapeared completely. The rest of the spectrum remained as flat as it was before, and the imaging remained as before, now they sounded their best. Paradigm reports that the Titans are flat +/-2 up to 16KHz when at 30 degress off axis. In my setup though, they roll off quite a bit from around (correcting after checking my data plots again) 10KHz already, but I don't mind that last octave too much, and I don't complain at all given their amazingly flat and natural midrange, and their price.

But my point is, you see that happened to me only after a few months of having had my speakers, and having been tuning many things up painstakingly, in my own apartment with my own system. I gather, in audio stores the circumstances speakers are set to are seldom adequate enough to get their best out of each one of them. Even at home, after break in, and after having tweaked things up, and after knowing your system quite a bit, still you might get some surprises as I did.

I compare speaker auditioning (and setting up an audio system in general) to writting computer software, which is what I do. The first try is very seldom correct, it almost always needs painstaking debugging. And even then....

Anyway thanks again for your feedback, it invited me to pour these thoughts out, sorry for the length.

Cheers,
Raul

 

[GirgleMirt]

argh shows you how personnal preference plays a huge role in speaker selection..

I've listened to the Kef Q1 and the Quad 11L (in different shops though).

BUT, the reaction I had after hearing the Quad was "nice!" and the reaction after the Q1 was "omg What is that... NEXT!!!"

the KEF Q1 was unbelievably warm, all the sound was aimed the toward lower end it seems and to me the rest left much to be desired. The Quad 11L in comparison was a very well balanced speaker, with much better everything.

The gear used with the Q1 probably wasn't the problem, because the Q5 sounded much better afterwards on the same Yamaha gear.

Quote:

This isn't a neutral speaker. As I said the bass is somewhat lacking and some might say that the treble could be better too. I like the treble the way it is. Nice and soft, not biting. If midrange is what you like you should defenitely consider the KEF Q1s.

Gah, yeah that pretty sums it up

Its always a matter of preference... If someone prefers a warm sound, he/she might not like the Quad. But I'd just like to point out that if you're not looking for something colored, Quad 11/12L are awesome speakers. To me the KEF Q1's were unpleasant to listen too because of their sound coloration.

It would be much more useful to say that you didn't like the Quad because you prefer a warm and colored sound than saying that the Quad 11L is a disappointing speaker, that they're boring, that they're overrated, etc...

One man's trash is another one's treasure.

 

[pbirkett]

Quote:

Originally posted by GirgleMirt One man's trash is another one's treasure.

True, but I have not heard of many speakers listened to by UK listeners that polarize opinion as dramatically as the Quads. As you say, some love them, some hate them, and there seems to be little in the way of a middle ground in my experience.

FWIW, the KEF's werent really my cup of tea (a little too slow and laid back for me), but they were positively vibrant compared to the Quads I felt. With most speakers, I could see redeeming features with them, but not really with the Quads to be honest - as I say, I felt most of your money went into posh cabinets, and they sounded barely any better than Wharfedale Diamond 8.1's to my ears, which are 25% of the price!! Now if the Quads had been (a lot) cheaper, then it might have been a little different, but to my ears, they were being comprehensively outperformed by speakers which were just over half the price in some cases, just that these speakers were not finished as well.

Now, the Quads for sure are very living room friendly - certainly I feel the B&Ws and KEF's were a lot more debatable in that area, and frankly, my #1 choice of all, the Missions, most people regard as BUTT UGLY. However I chose the speakers I felt performed the best in the end, and the Missions were $150 cheaper than the Quads and sounded FAR better to my ears.

The fact is, the tweeter in the Quad is reported to be a bit on the cheap side, and the 5-inch mid bass driver is simply too small to give decent welly. I found the sound overly smooth, to the point of them being a bit unrealistic. The 21L floorstander made a much better job, with greater attack and depth, but still overly smooth to my ears.

Still, as you say, different strokes for different folks. My only point here was to indicate that one should not just assume because Quad make them, that the 11L's are the be all and end all - I definitely not accusing you of that BTW, but many people *can* be accused of that, believe me.

 

[rsaavedra]

Originally posted by pbirkett
The fact is, the tweeter in the Quad is reported to be a bit on the cheap side

First time I hear that, where did you get that impression?

As a side note, from Quad webpages, it appears the tweeters for all their L series models (11L, 12L, 21L, 22L, and L center) are all 25 mm textile domes, with listed freq. response extension up to 24KHz, doesn't mean they are exactly the same but I would bet they are since that would provide more consistent sound for surround setups using different models in the series:

http://www.iagamerica.com/quad/lseriesmodels.htm

 

[Orpheus]

well... i think many expensive audiophile speakers use relatively cheap materials. i try not to think about it, and attribute the high prices to non-material costs. for instance, there's many $3000-20,000 speakers that use a $50 Vifa tweeter. it's very distinct... has 2 concentric rings with this missile looking thing sticking out in the center. only $50... and i'm sure they purchased it much cheaper in bulk. so, $20,000 speakers with $50 tweeters?--well, whatever... as long as they look and sound good right?

 

[D-EJ915]

Haha, Polk put a new faceplate on it, lol. Scan-Speak has a REALLY nice version of it that has a spike instead of the bullet-shaped one, and it's silver. It costs like 6 times as much, but it's nice.

 

[Jam_Master_J]

Quote:

I've just recently discovered this thread and wanted to say congratulations on your choice!! I bought Paradigm Titan's v2 a couple of years ago and am extremely happy with them. Made my purchase decision back then after having listened to higher priced speakers including B&W's, Infinity (IL10's), NHT's and even other Paradigm's like the Mini monitor. For the sound the Titans are capable of, and for their price, there was simply no doubt to me they were my best option. If you read reviews of the Titan in audioreview.com, then you might have come across my review (mine was the one that, among other things, mentioned a side by side comparison with some NHT towers). Wanted to mention, I also own the Atoms (rears in my HT setup), have done careful frequency response measurements and comparisons between the Titans and Atoms using Stereophile Test CD2. I found they are almost identical except for the lowest end, the Titan having a bit more bass extension as anyone would expect. Here I wanted to share a pic of my Titans in my setup (the stands I made specially for them by the way)

This is exactly what I would have said. I too, have v2 Titans as mains in my (bedroom) home theater. Atoms in the back and a CC-170. I also have a Tempest subwoofer. The Titans are awesome for their price( I got mine for $230 Canadian new). In a smallish room, placed on stands and mated with a sub they can sound quite excellent. Even without a sub, they have very respectable bass.

Oh, BTW my web site has some pics of the stands that I built for the Titans and Atoms.

 

[hottyson]

My favorite model of all time is the Paradigm Mini Mk III. A bit boomy in the bass but I really enjoy the sound. It might be found on the used market for around $200 or so for the pair.

For a current model of bookshelf I would suggest anything from Monitor Audio. These tend to be pretty midrange heavy, but you will be amazed at some of the music you hear through these.

If you are on a tight budget and want vintage you could keep your eyes open for really old Yamaha bookshelf speakers. I picked up a pair of NS-6 from a thrift shop for around $20. The tweeter is similar to the $400 monitors that Yamaha still produces. They sound very good to my ears.