newworld
Active Member
That's a good idea. I will definitely check them out.
Speaker Shootout
- Thread starter newworld
- Start date
That's a good idea. I will definitely check them out.
mnilan
Active Member
newworld:
I listened to the LS50 twice, once in a larger room and once in a much smaller room. They sounded great in the small room but seemed to run out of oomph (technical term) in the larger room. Given the size of my room, I decided that I might try the LS50s again but for another room...
Mike
I listened to the LS50 twice, once in a larger room and once in a much smaller room. They sounded great in the small room but seemed to run out of oomph (technical term) in the larger room. Given the size of my room, I decided that I might try the LS50s again but for another room...
Mike
trhee
ㅇtㅈyㅅr
The Mac Mini + DAC is an affordable solution that can be used as a streamer, NAS and HTPC (using something like XBMC).
newworld
Active Member
Yeah, it's just that after $600+dac+software, I'm not sure if it will even sound good. Convenient? Absolutely. Up to the level of my new speaker-to-be? I don't know...
newworld
Active Member
Nobody's Perfect
I feel very much left out with everyone's migrating to the Kef LS50 worship threads. I can imagine the woe of other manufacturers who've lost sales to Kef. Worry not, for those who haven't succumbed to the seduction of orange woofer and peer pressure shall find other manufacturers on this thread.
Dynaudio X34 - Last floorstander to be standing in the competition and revisited, it's become clear to me that my preferences are either large standmounts or small floorstanders. They walk the tight rope between the imaging of mini-monitors and the frequency extension of floorstanders. It also means they could excel at nothing. The X34's are good at everything, but they excel at nothing. The sound is still colored, but smooth and pleasant. Detail is all there, but everything's done at moderate. Bach's Goldberg Variations sound beautiful and even, but virtually with no ambience. Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations was fun with good separation, but the tonality of the cello just didn't ring true. I keep thinking, as I did previously, the Excite Series sound is a pleasant distortion. For anything other than classical, I think it's THE answer. I don't know why I think that other genres such as rock and roll need such sound. They just sound fantastic with such materials. We switch over to some Jazz on vinyl (from classical on flac). Interestingly, the sound got brighter and more open, but that glossy quality still lingered. It will definitely please many people, and it did me. I just wanted to be a bit more on the other side of tonal spectrum.
Amplification - Mcintosh Pre-Power
I feel very much left out with everyone's migrating to the Kef LS50 worship threads. I can imagine the woe of other manufacturers who've lost sales to Kef. Worry not, for those who haven't succumbed to the seduction of orange woofer and peer pressure shall find other manufacturers on this thread.
Dynaudio X34 - Last floorstander to be standing in the competition and revisited, it's become clear to me that my preferences are either large standmounts or small floorstanders. They walk the tight rope between the imaging of mini-monitors and the frequency extension of floorstanders. It also means they could excel at nothing. The X34's are good at everything, but they excel at nothing. The sound is still colored, but smooth and pleasant. Detail is all there, but everything's done at moderate. Bach's Goldberg Variations sound beautiful and even, but virtually with no ambience. Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations was fun with good separation, but the tonality of the cello just didn't ring true. I keep thinking, as I did previously, the Excite Series sound is a pleasant distortion. For anything other than classical, I think it's THE answer. I don't know why I think that other genres such as rock and roll need such sound. They just sound fantastic with such materials. We switch over to some Jazz on vinyl (from classical on flac). Interestingly, the sound got brighter and more open, but that glossy quality still lingered. It will definitely please many people, and it did me. I just wanted to be a bit more on the other side of tonal spectrum.
Amplification - Mcintosh Pre-Power
newworld
Active Member
I thought ambiance has something to do with treble?
Spektre
Brit alert
Funny, I always think of ambience as communicating the environment and interaction of sound in which it was recorded in and not specific to any part of the frequency range. Surely it depends on whats being heard directly and whats reflected off the various surfaces and back to your senses. These ambient sounds for example:
http://www.audiomicro.com/sound-effects/natural-ambience-sounds/ambience-room
http://www.audiomicro.com/sound-effects/natural-ambience-sounds/ambience-room
newworld
Active Member
So cool. You see? We all have different descriptions even when we are talking about the same things...
davidro
Lunatic Member
Sure all frequencies are important. But I feel it is the natural bass that really portrays the live concert hall ambiance more than anything. That's where a lot of modern floor-standing speakers fail to achieve in my experience. They're good for non-acoustic music though.
canuckaudiog
On a quest for high fidelity
Bass definitely gives you a sense of space. As does the reverb quality. I would say that it's both the bass and treble areas that give you that sense of resolution, depth and spaciousness. 
newworld
Active Member
Bass definitely gives you a sense of space. As does the reverb quality. I would say that it's both the bass and treble areas that give you that sense of resolution, depth and spaciousness.
Simply put, resolution.
newworld
Active Member
I'm kind of set on feeding my new speakers with some tube power. I would love to hear some actives for fun if they are readily available around me though.
newworld
Active Member
Ok, when I started this I didn't budget for new amplifiers, but I have a hard time looking past some deals on tube amplifiers. Plus I need a mac mini and a dac...should I cut down on my speaker budget drastically or just unload my savings? (oh yeah, that means I need more cables as well)
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RGA
Super Member
First not everyone migrates the KEF - the reality is there is always going to be huge Hype on a speaker under $2000 that sounds good. The Magnepan 1.7 gets huge hype and me I find them just ok. Just as many will find the KEF just OK. Most people can't afford more expensive speakers so more budget products will garner more praise and more people will buy them and more voices saying something is great makes them seem better than they really are.
Not to take anything away from the KEF - it's a "great" $1500 monitor speaker but it's not killing giants. I have the Audio Note AX Two - a no name non advertised speaker - here is the extent of the advertising "The AX range as designed as a general purpose small loudspeakers, and will work well with almost any amplifier."
This speaker is $1200 so you'll get it for $1k and is not outclassed by the KEF. Each brings something to the table. And the AX Two is one example - The ATC SCM 11 or the Roksan TR-5 (that I reviewed not long back) also bring things to the table.
Hype is largely an extension of the size of the company. The bigger the company the more readily available they are to consumers - every major city sells a B&W and probably a KEF (and many cities have several dealers selling these) - not every major city sells Audio Note, Spendor, Harbeth, Trenner and Freidl, Devore Fidelity etc. This means less reviewers hear them and that means less reviewers who ask for reviews. Further, some smaller companies have trouble supplying their products for review. Big Companies don't have these issues. John Atkinson of Stereophile for example noted that if a scheduled amplifier review falls through for shipping or production issues he has many Musical Fidelity amplifiers and products readily available - which is why people often complain about too many MF reviews - but often it is because some small company could not get him one to meet their scheduling demands. That means MF gets more hype and the other product is lost in the under the radar territory. Further, some companies come to the magazines asking to get a review - other companies like Audio Note do not - you ask them. Shindo has never sought a review - you buy them - you can review it if you want.
This is the problem with magazines IMO that put out "Product of the Year" like Stereophile. No one bothers to ask how they come up with it. When a big magazine like that gives "Product of the Year" to the KEF LS-50 that's going to generate huge amounts of hype. People will buy them on the strength of that without investigating how the award was derived at. AND IMO it is derived at dubiously.
They have 12-13 reviewers on their staff. The speaker must have been reviewed by one of their 6-7 core reviewers. The speaker only needs to have been auditioned by 3 reviewers on their staff (but as noted before BIG companies like KEF and B&W have been heard by far more people far more often than a Trenner and Freidl where maybe only one of their reviewers have heard them outside of show conditions.
The score products on a ballot point system. 3 points for first place, 2 for second and 1 point for third. Whichever gets the highest vote total wins the award.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the problem. If all 12 reviewers heard the KEF and all 12 gave it 3rd place votes it would have 12 points.
Speaker B is heard by 4 reviewers - 3 give it first place votes and the other reviewer gives it second. All four reviewers like speaker B MUCH better than the KEF - but the speaker gets 11 points because 8 reviewers never heard it and thus can't vote on it.
SO in fact a product of the year can be awarded by the magazine when in fact not a single reviewer on the staff thought it was the "best" product.
It also goes to their class A, B, C etc rankings which are equally absurd. Art Dudley recently purchased the Devore Orangutan and before that the Audio Note E - both loudspeakers he believes should be class A. But because of the measured performance which doesn't correlate to what people hear they were downgraded to class B.
Meanwhile the Devore 3XL was given class A. Now remember John Atkinson is a measurements guy and smaller standmount speakers typically measure better because none of them are forced to do things like Bass, Dynamics, or lifelike scale. So they win on things like box resonance and flat on axis frequency response and occasionally distortion though not the KEF. JA believes that anything in class A is better than anything in class B. Of course this runs counter to the fact that the actual reviewer - Art Dudley bought the class B Orangutan over the much cheaper class A 3XL. The Orangutan beats the ever loving snot out of the 3XL which IMO is quite overpriced for a standmount.
What about the British press? Well they're not much better. The Sugden A21a lost to the Roksan Kandy years back in their amplifier shootouts. People will see 5 star award to Roksan - hype hype hype. Not it's a good amp (I reviewed it too) and I can see why they gave it the overall winner in their shootout but if people actually read the reviews they would note that on sound quality all of their blind listeners chose the Sugden A21a as being "easily the best sounding."
But the review factored in watts per channel 125watts for the Roksan versus 20 for the Sugden and that the Roksan looked better and had remote control and more features etc etc. All of which is valid but many people buy for sound quality not because it has a remote control.
Roksan gets the hype but a much better sounding amplifier flies under the radar.
As mainstream products go the KEF is excellent and it doesn't deserve some of the backlash I see it getting on other forums. It's well balanced - the treble is quite good for a metal tweeter though it's not perfect and my AX Two (no name from who?) is smoother and more natural sounding and is just as well integrated even if the tweeter isn't in the middle of the woofer. The KEF has more slam and bigger bass but at the expense of efficiency. The KEF looks better and feels far more substantial in terms of technical prowess and design. And the KEF is more able than the AX Two to play harder hitting music at higher levels. But on vocals - like a Loreena McKennitt or Eva Cassidy - the kind of smaller music the AX Two wins hands down and it's not close over the KEF. The KEF is a better all-rounder - you can play Lady Gaga or Guns and Roses at loud levels and get more feeling thump. Neither one is perfect which is why I like them both - because I love Eva Cassidy but I also like Guns and Roses, some trance etc. The Kef is better able to negotiate amplified music - the Audio Note is better on acoustic instruments.
In the end don't let the hype make the decision for you - the hype at most should perhaps get you to the store to audition them.
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davidro
Lunatic Member
Frankly I'd just pimp on the speakers and worry about the amp later.