I overcame my fear and budgetary sanity to buy a pair of Focal Aria 926s. No regrets now. I really tried to live with the Celestions and a Gallo sub, and could do so if I restricted myself to moderate listening levels (you can still talk over the speakers if you raise your voice but you don't have to yell), but once you ventured into Judas Priest SPL they turned into white hot lengths of coat hanger ramming into my ears. I was unwilling to compromise. So, I have two huge boxes in a little room and they can play beautifully at conversational levels or at debilitating loudness with no wincing when the music ascends into the treble region. I'm good with that.
Afraid to buy new speakers
I'm stuck with hideous acoustics that simply couldn't be worse, and I have to place speakers close to a concrete block wall. There's no getting around it. I have decent CD player and integrated amp recently bought new (NAD 365BEE) as well as a Parasound P3 and PS Audio HCA2. Given my sorry room configuration I fear any speaker I buy will be a mere shadow of itself in a different environment, and I cannot change this environment. I'm finding that a set of small monitors and a sub seems to work, but these speakers have their own limitations. I've got a max $3K budget for a pair of speakers, but read time and again how any speaker will sound like crap when their back panel is placed close to a wall. If true that kills anything and I might as well stick with my monitors or if I want to play really loud when the wife's out put my old Advent 2s on and launch the cones. Is there ANY speaker in the 2-3 thou range that is designed to function well close to a wall save an in-wall unit? I look at these long ribbons of 3-4" drivers and can't help but think they'll sound horrible, but who knows. I'm probably going to be here for some years, so I have to make the most of it.
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- 39 posts total
- 39 posts total