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Speakers. What would you buy?

kerouacknew

kerouacknew

Active Member
Looking to purchase/try some different speakers with my system which consists of Macintosh Mc250 with a Macintosh Mx110 pre. Current speakers are Yamaha NS 690. Room is approx 12 x 15 living room but at some point i will be moving upstairs to a dedicated room which will be much bigger. At some point will move to all tubes. Macintosh Mc275 hopefully in my future.
I listen to all types of music. A lot of acoustic rock.
Lots and lots of speakers available at the moment in my current area on the used market.
Some options i have been considering. Tannoy Prestige Stirling $3000 Can, B&W nautilus 804 $2000. Sony SS-M7 $1500. and Harbeth Super 5HL $3500. They are all available within a couple hrs from my home. Which ones would you buy? Any others i should watch for? Something that will work in my current space as well as upstairs in a bigger room. Thoughts, suggestions please??
Thanks
 
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I was just listening to a pair of tannoy monitor hpds last week and my Tech buddy owns a pair of Tannoy system 15 dmts
These he drives with a pair of Mac 60 monoblocks.804's ive heard also and id take the Tannoys over the 804's .Sony's and harbeth I haven't heard but id suspect theyd fall short.The tannoys are all highly efficient and will be driven easily by the Mac 275.They can be driven by as little as 4-5 watts and will sound glorious
Try to audition some 15 inch duo-concentric befor you make a dicision
good luck
Hunter
 
I'm not that impressed with B&W speakers, I know, I know the 801 nautilis (spelling) is highly rated, but to my ears, they are 'meh'
anyone complaining about the sound dispersion of a ribbon tweeter (Botryts) all I can say, is. Are you insane?:whip: No, no, really, that's ok. but there is no finer transducer then a ribbon, IMO and by extension, magnetic planar tweeters. Then again I love maggies.

OP, Tannoy and Harbeth and Sony, in that order, in my opinion. Otherwise, I'd suggest ribbons. I'm not a big fan of Yamaha speakers, they sound 'cold' to me.

did I mention ribbons?:beerchug:

I own a pair of focal's they are amazing sounding, but the highs are a bit hot for my ears, so they don't work nearfield. Otherwise, they do everything I laud old (EMIT) Infinity's for.
 
modern or old?

old, I'd suggest watching for Infinity Kappa 8,9, Rennasaince, IRS Omega,Delta, just about any VMPS you can find, (unfortunately defunct since his death last year) Carver Amazings, Apogee Acoustics, Genesis speakers,Wisdom audio, etc etc.

New, It's harder. Ribbons are suposedly harder to manufacture en masse, and harder to intigrate (due to their superior acoustic response IMO) with traditional cone drivers, so fewer speaker companies use them. Anything using the AMT/Heil driver, although I find Martin Logans smaller speakers disappointing. Anything showing an 'air motion' tweeter is based on the recently expired amt patent, and the dipole at least is an amazing tweeter.

I haven't heard any of the current speakers, with the exception of the maggies, and the lower end Martin Logans.
You'd be hard pressed to beat the Magnepan 3.7, unless that is, you grabbed the 20.'s but you already said you don't want maggies.

http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/SRT/srt.html this with the RAAL ribbon tweeter.
Sunfire makes a hell of a small speaker with a mag/planar tweeter I am very fond of, although I haven't heard this speaker itself. Bob Carver 'invented' this particular mag/planar tweeter, and it's a beaut.
http://www.sunfire.com/productdetail.asp?id=24
Martin Logan has gone all in with amt knockoffs, and the higher end ones might be great.
Bohlender Graebener make/made great speakers, with the passing of David Graebener, in 2015, the future is unknown.

Etc etc.
 
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