£500 speaker?

A friend of mine has recently decided to buy some speakers to go with my old Marantz cd63 cdp and his Marantz integrated...
He's heard mine, and wants something like that but at a max budget of £500!

He's also going to put a DVD player through it, and have a PJ-based home cinema thing, so what he's looking for is non-AV speakers, if you know warrimean!
They're going in a huuuuuge room, about 40x20 with double height ceiling, with lots of glass so slightly warm might be better, as well as reasonable sensitivity and oodles of deep bass.

Is it possible for this price? Castle Pembroke, or 2nd hand Quad 22? Tannoy wotsit or Kef thingamybob? Any ideas as I haven't got a clue!

 

I pickeed up my meadowlark kestrels for that price, although that is one hell of a room size!

 

I'd recommend taking a look at the Epos range (M12.2 new for that price or M15/15.2 s/hand) excellent speaker for the price IMHO.

 

The Meadowlarks are good but could you find a pair? What about the quads. I've seen 21L's for £500ish. With that much room perhaps one of the Mission or MA speakers that have quite a few drivers. He'll need as much help as he can getting the air moving
I've seen Triangle speakers at that price, I reckon they'd fit the bill. Strange suggestion and perhaps not very hifi, but if he can cope with the looks what about a pair of Isobariks. They're designed to do that sort of job

 

40x20!?!?!?!

When you think of the difficulty exhibitors have at hifi shows filling rooms that big with large floorstanders - he needs BIG bass cones.

Id look for something thats a bit older, a bit more unfashionable, reasonably efficient with massive cones.

The Emporium is a good place for that kind of thing. Heres a few items that sound very promising. The Glastonburys are supposed to be very good, and they are certainly big. I havent seen all the others.

AUDIO PHYSICS TEMPO orig version,black, with Essex digital correction unit that fits between transport and dac and gives impressive bass, 2500 430

LUMLEY 3.5 floorstanders cost 1500 only 400

ROKSAN OJANS plain black finish 300

TOWNSEND GLASTONBURY MK2 nice condition, 600


Only thing is, that Marantz integrated - how powerful is it? It might be worth trading that in for something with a few more watts..

 

NB
He might want to speak to Nick about vintage stuff too. Theres some STUNNING value for money to be had - vintage stuff often sounds better, is better built and better value for money - its just our ignorance that leaves it off the audition list.

I havent heard these - but it gives an idea..

KLIPSCH pair cornwalls, 3 way with 15" bass units 500

http://home.comcast.net/~stangbanger/HomeTheater/Klipsch_cornwal_i.htm

I mean just LOOK at the technical specifications and photograph on that link.

 

there is only one answer - the might of messrs cerwin & vega need to visit your mates living room. cheap as chips, very efficient and load as fcuk.
cheers


julian

 

DIY. Especially if Leonard is handy with a router. These cost £400 and have mucho welly.

They still need new baffles, and x-over changes. The carcasses were ready finished -about 2 - 6 months background work depending on what you decide.

 

Isobariks for that money will shabby at best imo

second hand Castle Chesters for £200 leaving 300 for a stud wall to make the room smaller

 

Second hand 22Ls mightn't be a bad idea - you should be able to find a pair in the region of £500 or maybe a little more. Very deep bass, though not 'AV balanced' - fairly neutral rather than warm. You might need the rated 300W for a room that size though...

 

Grahams idea of DIY is good, Julain's Cerwan Vega's would certainly fill the room.

Some suggestions of speakers with 6.5" bass units though, which will struggle in a room that size.

Id personally be looking at 2 x 10" as an absolute minimum, 15" or bigger preffered for the bass.

 

Cheers chaps..
DIY isn't na option, as he's not at all handy and I'm not going to spend hours making them for him!
And making the room smaller isn't an option - it's an open plan barn conversion.
Those Klipsch horns might be just the thing, anyone heard them? Are they warm or rip-yer-ears-out? Presumably he'd only need a volume level of 1 with his 50w amp to completely destroy his foundations as well.
I also like the Glastonbury and old Lumley ideas as well - getting them past his Mrs might be fun but it's amazing I didn't think of these wot with my penchant for old speakers with big cones!

 

Len,

best to give Nick a call at the Emporium. He's heard practically every speaker ever made. He'll tell you what the Klipsch's are like vs lumleys vs glastonburys vs whatever else he'd suggest.

I reccomend them a lot (the emporium) but I take my own advice and get most of my stuff from there. There's nowhere like it in the whole country IMHO.

The one's Im getting made are ugly in their raw form, so Nick is getting a cabinet maker to cover them with a nice wood veneer. Thats always an option if his choice is a bit of an ugly SOB, although it would undoubtedly blow the budget..



Chris

 

I spotted today that there's a brand new pair of Ruark Prologue II (the £1250 one) at £500 in Hughes Electrical in Cambridge, which seems like really rather a good deal for somebody.

 

Ring up Tannoy in Glasgow and buy a pair of 3833GG 15" dual concentric drivers. I notice their useless poxy website doesnt recognise the number so you may be forced into dealing with humans. Then get your mate to pay you £x00 to build 2 brick corner enclosures, triangular plan section. Then just cut the baffles and bolt them on with wing nuts/threaded stud/silicon rubber gasket etc

 

Triangular brick, lawks!
That would certainly be massy and rigid.. That and plenty of mortar plasticiser and a weak mix would remove any floor-born vibrations from the speakers - shame his floor is suspended!
I did speak to The Emporium chap and there's a couple of very promising options that are on budget, and would mean he has to do nothing except pay for 'em, then watch me install them.
Oh, and make sure his amp works first

 

i'd be thinking Tannoys too- something like the old Profile 638s or Saturn S10s would fill a big room, give good imaging thanks to the dual concentric drivers etc

 

...some great recommendations but I think for £500 he is working on a false economy!

The danger is that he will be buying something that is really not up to the job given the room size and in a short period of time end up with a thrashed pair of speakers.

He would be better going to have a word with his bank manager telling him he needs a larger pair of speakers has a £500 deposit, how much will he lend him given his monthly cash budget.

Hopefully he can get around £2k in total which will open up a whole range of options, including looking on the second-hand market on Audiogon.com in the USA. He could buy a very decent pair of speakers from the US (bearing in mind that US room sizes are usually much larger than here in the UK), shipping and import duty/tax although for some may be quite daunting, it really is quite straight forward.

Contact a company like Yellow Freight who handle alot of loudspeaker movement for manufacturers for rates, most expensive will be air freight with the cheapest being consolidated sea freight.

Import Duty on loudspeakers is 4.5%.

Usually goods will be shipped CIF, that's cost, insurance and freight.

Customs will look at the sales invoice and calculate the Duty and tax as follows (example only):

Loudspeakers $2000.00 = £1111 (using rate of 1.8)
Insurance you can normally get for £0.35 for every £100 of invoice value
Freight on a large pair of floorstanders (weight around 150 lbs) £200 (based upon old pricing data

Therefore Customs would sum the following:

£1111 Cost
£5 Insurance (although some companies have a minimum amount)
£200

Sub Total = £ 1316

Customs would then add the Duty rate of 4.5%

Duty = £59.22

Add this to the sub total of £1316 = £1375.22

Finally there is the good old VAT at 17.5%

VAT = £240.66

So to summarize:

Speakers would cost you around 1200 (for 2k Dollar)
Shipping allow around £200
Duty around £60
VAT around £240

That's a grand total of £1700!!!!!

Looks quite attractive dosn't it. Of course there is the whole issue of buying without seeing or hearing and risking buying from sellers who may be quite liberal with their descriptions, but when I lived in the USA I used Audiogon quite a bit and in my experience there is a whole community of high quality product and seller on there (much better than ebay IMHO).

Sorry if I'v blabbed on a bit! :SLEEP:

 

...O I forgot, a great choice would be something like one of the older series of Von Schweikert VR-4 floor-standing speakers. The VR-4.5's silver anniversaries would be ideal but the regular VR-4's would also be a superb choice, plus they can all be upgraded by Von Schweikert with their upgrade path program.

 

Don't worry, I've found something vintage in the studio monitor vein that comes in under his budget, and I know will fill the space - they've got 2x12" bass cones, quoted frequency range of 18Hz-40KHz (!!) and a max spl of about 120dBA...
Not as efficient as he may one day need, but then he can always upgrade his amp.