speakers....

its a good point you make Stereo Mic about the best not always being the biggest but the one that matches the room well. I went from a pair of dynaudio contour floorstanders, which IMO overwhelmed my room. I now have a pair of 1007be standmounts which are some of the best speakers i have heard, and almost certainly the best i have owned.

They fit the room perfectly giving me an even spread of sound with balanced bass (which i could not achieve before)

They may be a lot smaller.. but they sound a huge amount better than my previous speakers... and i think room matching has a lot to do with this.
 
Stereo Mic said:
The most important aspect of any audio system these days IME is the interface between room and loudspeaker - sources are now far less of a variable. I've been on about this for five years or so. I would therefore suggest initially setting aside the majority of one's time and budget to buy the best possible loudspeaker that integrates properly with your living room. That does not neccessarily mean the biggest, nor the most expensive.

That means a loudspeaker that will provide good headroom capability and whose F3 point and roll off characteristics mate well with your living space. The task of choosing a loudspeaker would be made a great deal easier if audiophool companies bothered to advertise such parameters rather than steeping their boxes in mystique.

All possible budget and time should be dedicated to optimising this part of the system - after which the remainder should be used to find a reasonable source and an amplifier which drives the speakers selected without strain to the required levels. If the speakers that work best in your living room are less costly than anticipated don't baulk at buying them - put the money saved towards some new music or a nice bit of furniture to hide the electronics in.
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First rate advice mike,
 
Its all down to balance really. No point spending thousands on speakers and a couple of hundred on the source. The same applies the other way round. In some cases you can break the rules and a component can excell for little money, and they are out there.
 
Ya-Boo said:
First rate advice mike,
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Except nice furniture won't make it sound better


;)



Jimbo said:
Its all down to balance really. No point spending thousands on speakers and a couple of hundred on the source. The same applies the other way round. In some cases you can break the rules and a component can excell for little money, and they are out there.
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quite so
 
Re hi fi speakers

Hello banpe. my view. what comes through your speakers is one thing what your speakers do with it is another. if you were to listen to a poor source and a poor integrated amp then listen to twenty pairs of speakers throuth them you would still pick the speakers that sounded the best to you then them speakers could only get better by updating the rest. a good speaker should be able to reproduce any type of music reggae. soul. classical. jazz. rock. etc etc thats the key (oceanobsession)
 
Jimbo, David -

You are associating 'quality' with 'price'



'' No point spending thousands on speakers and a couple of hundred on the source ''
 
Some very good advice, thanks.....it seems that the general feeling is towards putting a fair bit of time and money into speakers....I shall measure my room and post dimensions, which I think was a good suggestion.....Next question then, why is it, that the speakers I have owned get on my nerves after a while? There always seems to be a flaw that irritates after a while..I dont think Im fussy really, just that certain aspects tend to "bite" after a while .Has anyone found their perfect speaker (as one post here explains-thanks mac) and what is it....do certain speakers please more people than most? and if so what are they.? ill try to explain room shape the best i can..see if you can make more sense of this description than I can!...the room is L shaped. the L is reversed (as in a capital L in a mirror) and the lower portion of the L is 4 metres accross.)width of room)...The upper line of the L is 5 metres in length.....The section of the room that is "cut out" of say a square shape, to make the L is 1x1m...IE if the room were square it would be 5m long and 4 m wide...however, as the room is L shaped, or _| shaped, the section that is removed ( to the left) means that if travelling backwards from the window at the front of room ( overlooking front drive) you would have a room 3x3metres, that as you move back, turns into 4m wide for the remaining 2 metres you travel back (making 5) This is precisely the reason I tried to avoid posting measurements previously....An orange, for the first person who can have the foggiest idea what my room looks like! because from that nonsense above, Id be struggling....
 
banpe2006 said:
Next question then, why is it, that the speakers I have owned get on my nerves after a while? There always seems to be a flaw that irritates after a while..
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The simple answer is that all of the speakers you have owned are coloured. Whilst on first listen this may even be attactive (and help to make the speaker sound different to the outgoing ones), in the long term the listener identifies what is wrong and has to sell - starting the whole process again.

All speakers are coloured to some degree, but research by Floyd Toole does show that listeners actually prefer low distortion, highly linear transducers in the long term. So the key to long term satisfaction is to minimise distortion IME and choose a speaker that is relatively free from FR anomolies in your living room.

And sadly speakers that are relatively free of vices are generally not inexpensive.
 
thats odd didn't you claim that there were no hifi speakers below a ridiculously high price point [25k] to one of my mate ....?
I'd go as far to say that no speakers are error free regardless of cost. Like all things in life you have to make compromises with most people these are budget related .....within my circle of acquaintances [personal and business]the most anyone has spent on a set of speakers is 6k ....the average is well below 1.5k assuming this is broadly similar over the forum talk of speakers costing more than 2k is pie in the sky ..... with todays economic forecasts I'd imagine we have already reach a high point.

therefore mere mortals will have to make do with real world speakers and not some hifi fantasy
 
FWIW my ruark sceptres cost me £100 (2nd hand) and to me at least they sound (mostly) quite nice.......giving a bit of bass, bit of treble......and we're making a start on a nice 3D sounstage.



:)
 
zanash said:
thats odd didn't you claim that there were no hifi speakers below a ridiculously high price point [25k] to one of my mate ....?
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I don't know. Would you care to link to the post?

I'll just say "yes" to the rest of your post if it makes you happy.
 
S Mic, you mention speakers free from colouration etc....I had the W benesch arcs ( which I thought were pretty uncoloured) but they became annoying to listen to after a while also......what sorts of speakers ie names etc, would provide this sort of quality? If there are any that arent too pricey, i may try some
 
DavidF said:
......and to an extent rightly so?

No?
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Hi David

Not in my humble opinion - no.

I can name £400 amplifiers I feel better than £2k ones, £500 speakers that I'd prefer to £10,000 ones, and £200 digital sources that sound the same to me as very expensive CD players.

I'm not saying it's about system integration - it's more that there is a vast quantity of shit-fi IMHO.
 
bottleneck said:
Hi David

Not in my humble opinion - no.

I can name £400 amplifiers I feel better than £2k ones, £500 speakers that I'd prefer to £10,000 ones,
.
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Yes I am sure so.

But that £400 amplifer and £500 speaker DO sound better than the mass produced tripe offered by for eg C*m*ts??

All I was saying was £ for £ GENERALLY you get what you pay for.
 
banpe2006 said:
S Mic, you mention speakers free from colouration etc....I had the W benesch arcs ( which I thought were pretty uncoloured) but they became annoying to listen to after a while also......what sorts of speakers ie names etc, would provide this sort of quality? If there are any that arent too pricey, i may try some
Click to expand...

The key was that they produce a relatively linear response in your listening room. What might provide that in mine may not in yours. Did you have Arcs? There's no such thing as a loudspeaker free of colouration, but there are different types of colouration and differing amounts of course.
 
getting back to speakers .....

I've just built a set of full range [single driver] speakers using plans off the web ...a simple folded ml tqwt

the drivers were £5 and the wood £20 5x3m floor boards .....!

the sound is stunning for less than £30 ......they don't do deep bass but top mid and imaging are as good as my statics....

they sound a little less refined but fill the room like some expensive speakers I've had don't !

So if your undecided why not take the opportunity and experiment and to build your own speakers and be blown away with there performance...

These are great fun and should be viewed that way ......rather than getting too serious over a hobby that supposed to be fun !
 
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