$1,000 Used Speakers - Recommendations

ScooterMcTav

I know less than I think
Hello all,

Despite having many good sets of speakers around the house, I was considering selling off a bunch of surplus to look for THE pair of speakers.

These speakers will be placed in my main listening room, and the objective criteria I am looking for are:

- Floorstanders
- 2.5 to 3 way preferred
- Full range (at least dipping into the 30s)
- Not vintage (2000 or newer)

Some of my subjective criteria are:

- Non fatiguing
- Clear highs and detail, without being too much so

To provide additional background, I've spent the last year and one half looking for this "magic" set. Traditionally, I've liked the laid back sound of British speakers, but have also found that they do have a tendency to lose some sharpness on the top end.

My thoughts at this point were to look at either Kef of B&W - problem is lack of places to demo them properly locally. Based on the interwebs, it sounds as if B&W have the nice British sound, but with a little more sparkle up top.

For a little more additional info, here is what I listened to in the past year, with impressions:

Soliloquy 6.2 - plenty of top end detail, a bit of work to drive bass out of them, fatiguing on mid-forward recordings.
Wharfedale Diamond 10.6 - Very listenable and non fatiguing, a bit dull up top
Ohm Walsh 2 - Very nice, but sound dull in a sound absorbent room
Klipsch Forte - Way mid forward, bass was a bit shy, tinnitus inducing in minutes
Focal Chorus 706 - Thin sounding, and bass shy with airy highs
Monitor Audio Silver RX1 - Very nice and balanced, but underpowered for the room
Monitor Audio Silver 8i - Overall balanced sound, but had stealth tinnitus, possibly from the tweeters. Bass could get boomy.
Mirage OM-10 - Lots of bass, though tunefulness was mixed. Highs were there but a bit splashy.
Klipsch Synergy F3 - Fun rock speakers, but lacking any refinement.
Polk Monitor 7B - Decent overall sound reproduction, SL1000 tweeters broke up too easily at louder volumes, top end not precise

My budget dictates used, and welcome the thoughts of others who read my descriptions above, who say "yeah, that sounds right" and who have found happiness with THE set.
 
May I suggest you look at some of the highly regarded speakers that are considered vintage.
ADS 1290's & 1590's, & L980's, if you can find them. These are well known and excellent in every regard, minus the short comings you noted in your listed speakers.
They all have rubber surrounds on the woofers and the famous and sweet sticky dome mids and tweeters.
You can also go a bit older with the 910's, again, out standing, exceptional deeeeeeep bass, rubber surrounds and the dome mids and tweeters. These are big heavy beasts so you'll need some room.
Glenn
 
I'm partial to the early Snell's. Type C's, C IV's are ones that I own. To me, when they are in excellent condition, the Type C is hard to beat. Likes power to really sound the best though.
 
Hi all, thanks for the quick responses so far.

Power will be a Jolida JD-302BRC at 60W/ch using KT88 output tubes.

I could also possibly put a Musical Fidelity a3.2 into play if I wanted as well, though the tubes are the preference.
 
GD he said NEWER THAN 2000 so that would throw ADS out the window. I find them dark forboding and not very interesting speakers to listen to.

HE SAID NEWER THAN 2000 ALL.
Yes, I know that. I said to consider older vintage as a possibility, that's all.
 
new series Kef Q towers, various sizes i think they have been around now for 5-6 years, see a few pr on auction, $1k a pair is a close call, but possible. the kefs may not impress at first they are not like other speakers, but after a while with them its all you can listen to, any other speaker i listen to now has me starring at the tweeters and sound like the individual drivers instead of a Kef, it can ruin you for using other systems after. but ...........i like it
 
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Here is an option. JBL has made an excellent speaker in the S series. Their current generation of horn technology is smooth, detailed, and accurate. As disclosure I own a pair of 4365, and they are long term keepers for me and able to stand toe to toe with many other a speaker. The S590 are based on that horn technology. You will get great imaging, dynamic swing, and an even tonal balance. No they won't be overly warm, or the flip side, fatiuging. Rather they are as balanced as you can expect a $2000 pair of speakers to be. Right now you can can a pair from Harmon direct that are factory refurbished for about $900 shipped. This is a periodic sale, it will go away shortly. They are at 50% off, which makes them a fabulous buy. The downside is they are available in black only.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JBL-Studio-...230325&hash=item2ef85cad8e:g:APIAAOSw-0xYQKYh

1318777-jbl-studio-590.jpg

studio590_grill.jpg


Regards
Mister Pig
 
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Here is an option. JBL has made an excellent speaker in the S series. Their current generation of horn technology is smooth, detailed, and accurate. As disclosure I own a pair of 4365, and they are long term keepers for me and able to stand toe to toe with many other a speaker. The S590 are based on that horn technology. You will get great imaging, dynamic swing, and an even tonal balance. No they won't be overly warm, or the flip side, fatiugin. Rather they are as balanced as you can expect a $2000 pair of speakers to be. Right now you can can a pair from Harmon direct that are factory refurbished for about $900 shipped. This is a periodic sale, it will go away shortly. They are at 50% off, which makes them a fabulous buy. The downside is they are available in black only.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JBL-Studio-...230325&hash=item2ef85cad8e:g:APIAAOSw-0xYQKYh

1318777-jbl-studio-590.jpg

studio590_grill.jpg


Regards
Mister Pig
nice i could not find a pair of them anywhere a year ago, they are a great speaker, every place i looked was a dead end , not in stock.
 
I really like my Aerial Acoustic Model 7B's. They're 3-way, 4-driver speakers that are from the early 2000's IIRC (I bought mine used, so I'm not sure of the exact year of release). I was using Sony SS-M7's and liked them a lot, but found them a bit too rolled off on top. The 7B's are a well balanced speaker that adds high and low end extension, but aren't bright/harsh/fatiguing to my ears, and I have a very reflective room with sliding glass doors and HW floors with no rugs. They're VERY well built and weigh about 90-100lbs each.

The designer worked at ADS, so this might be considered a more modern version of some ADS models.

The possible cons for your situation: They're said to like lots of power. I'm using a solid state 200W (8 ohms)/400W (4 ohms) amp and haven't tried them with lower power. Also, they're rear ported, so if your speakers must be close to your back wall, these likely wouldn't be a good fit because they sound best with some space between them and the back wall. I think I have about 2ft or a bit more between the rear of the speaker and the back wall.

They come in different wood veneers, which look great. But they're not all that common and if you want a pair, you'll likely have to settle for whatever finish you can find for sale in your area. While you may see them listed above your target price, they can be had for your budget or less. I paid less than $1000.

AA 7B.jpg
 
It sounds like you view Ohm Walsh 2s pretty highly, and assuming you still have a pair, why not try Ohm's upgrade?

If you call them with your needs, they can steer you to the mods that will get you there... and they have a generous trial period, so there's little risk.
 
Why not leave your comfortable nest for a brief while in order to go somewhere that you can actually hear some real speakers as opposed to reading about them on the internet? Pack the wagon, hitch up the team and come on into town, there's all kinds of neat modern things to see.
 
John's somewhat flexible, often has "sales" plus he gives AKers a discount. Also, I think the upgrade to 2000s is less than the full blown model (2.200 - I think?).
 
I would encourage you to look at some of Spendors small floor standers. I have the S5e. Really nice sounding speaker but they do not go as deep as 30 Hz. They are available in the $800 range even less on occasion. There are larger models and so you could possibly find some thing closer to that 30Hz.

Not that I’ve had an issue with bass myself. Natural bass. Just not super deep
 
these speakers offer great value on used market, some of these are early 90s but most were produced in 2000s

PSB Imagine T and gold stratus
Paradigm studio 80/100 v4+
Vienna acoustics bach
NHT 2.9/3.3
Totem acoustic Hawk

some of these are quite rare on the used market but it's worth the effort to find them

also worth mentioning you like british sound, have you considered grabbing some used harbeth p3s or ls50s etc and using a subwoofer to augment low end?
 
Under $1K, 3-way, full range floorstanders, manufactured after Y2K, that have British-like accuracy/non-fatiguing but not too shrill. That's a tall order.
 
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