As Advised, Starting With Speakers First.


After licking my wounds and on the mend financially, I’m getting poised to rebuild. My wife and I are going to be doing a little touring around WA & OR last week of December and wondered what any of you Pacific Northwester’s thoughts were (yes you too Chuck being a local, but not thinking Tektons just yet) are on some of the local dealers around the area? There’s Tune Hi Fi, Hawthorne Stereo, Definitive Audio, Kitsap Audio and Gig Harbor Audio that all offer some interesting products. Also Reference Media in Bellingham. Any others, pros & cons, general advice, are all welcomed!

These establishments will not even graze all the speaker options out there, so if you have any other speaker recommendations, please let ’em fly. I know, there’s are a ton of threads on speakers, and I am trying to go and hear what I can with my own ears, but I would like to hear of peoples experiences where they order factory direct, which is fairly common these days, sight unseen/unheard and if they are getting/hearing what they want when purchasing blind. Or are you all spending a lot on return shipping?

The listening room at the new digs (ya, even sold the house too) measures 24’ x 15’ with a slightly vaulted ceiling and an L shaped opening to a small kitchen about halfway down. The two end walls that are 15’ wide both have doorways in them so speakers would be in the way. Probably best to have them on one of the long walls. One wall is solid for the first 2 feet then widows 5’ up from there the total length of the wall. The other side is solid, but my back would be to the view whilst listening. All hard surfaces.

Listen to just about every genre of music except Country & opera. Floor standers would be nice bypassing subs, but I’m open (maybe not the wife though, it’s a small house!) Had Martin Logan Spires in the past. Fun to listen to in the sweet spot but got fatiguing during long listening sessions and very unforgiving to poorer recordings. You get what you play.

Budget, well, I sold my previous entire $20K system for about half that so maybe in around $10-12K to replace amp, Dac, source and speakers inclusive.

Thanks
high-amp
I have a whole box of OC703 sitting in my shop making it real easy to show just how effective and simple this stuff is to work with. I also have things like Synergistic Research HFT that are almost invisible yet incredibly effective. There’s a YouTube video you can watch where they treat an entire room that starts off all bare walls sounding terrible and the improvement from HFT is so great you can hear it on the video even from a laptop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AX9W_vVAEo  

I’ve also now got several Schumann generators which is another one that’s very small yet makes a huge difference.

That’s just the room treatment type stuff. There’s another half a dozen or so things going on all of which add together. What they all have in common, not many have actual ears-on experience to appreciate just how good they are, just how much they can elevate a system. Every single one of them has an impact that is easy to hear and impressive. Otherwise I don’t bother. Take even just one of them out you will hear the sound collapse. Take them all away it will be just another blah stereo. Okay still better than most but no longer totally freaking amazing. Which it is. Come and listen. You will see.

I have that Christmas weekend off by the way, so good time to come.
twoleftears

Talked to John at AC and stopping into to see him just after Xmas.
He's also only an 8 minute walk to Hawthorne's, talk about hitting the ball outta the park!
Thanks so much for the tip.
Hey Chuck, thanks for the offer, I will definitely take you up on this one day as I have lots of time to figure this out. The new place needs a ton of work so don’t really need tunes for a while yet, just taking my time and researching! This trip is a combo of family visits (daughter is in Tacoma) and my wife and I’s 10th wedding anniversary (Oregon Coast). We haven’t had a holiday or any time off together since then. Just trying to fit in a few audio shops in on route. I don’t want to push to much on her at once, so will forgo it this time around, hope you understand. As much as I don’t think Tektons’ are a great fit in my (and my wife’s!) little space, I would love to have a listen and see all the goodies you have accumulated and tweaked in your system over the years.
Maybe I could pick up patrickdowns up at the ferry?
Gee, audioguy85, synergy? When I brought this up in a recent post, I was almost crucified for using the term (I’d have to go back and look it up to clarify)

Would you care to elaborate?