Dazed & Confused


Listening to mostly jazz, solo instruments and vocals I find my Martin Logan Spire hybrids to sound awesome, but recently I was listening to some both "Busy" 90’s rock and classical (lots of instruments playing loudly together) and I find the music starts to sound garbled and annoying (to bright), so much so, I turn it off.
I was wondering if you all might have some suggestions on some speakers that would be a little more forgiving with busy/loud music that I could possibly switch over to when listening to different types of music. That is unless I can find speakers that can handle all styles of music, then I would consider taking the hit ($$$) on selling the Spires.

Without getting into room size and dynamics, lets just call it a standard room, I was also looking for something more efficient. The Spires need a huge amount of power (and volume) to sound good. Looking more for something I can listen to loud but also still enjoy the music at a much lower volume if that’s at all possible. Neutral and not to bright.
Living in the sticks, I can’t just jump in the car to go demo speakers. Only once, in the past, did I purchase a set of speakers online and unheard, going solely on the sales person’s recommendations. I learned the hard way to never do that again!

Equipment now: Coda CSiB integrated amp with W4S 2v2 SE Dac running Roon Nucleus.

I also wanted to mention that the Spires have phenomenal base, so much so I sold the 2 subs I was originally using with them. Floor standers and bookshelfs have come along way in SQ these days, but if I need to purchase another set of subs the budget is starting to dwindle.

No vinyl or CD’s, just Tidal.

$3,000 - $5000 budget, new or newer demos.

Thanks for any suggestions or advice you may have to offer!
Paul
high-amp
All great input, much thanks you all. 

I purchased electrostatics without doing enough research and was pushed hard by a sales person at the time. With the same music (played on a tube amp), the ML's sounded better (with the same song, can't remember what it was) compared to Vienna Acoustic Baby Grands and Focal 1028's, although the ML's were also 2 1/2 times, so they must be better, right?

I would still like to venture into some smaller conventional speakers to place behind on either side of the Spires, just to play with. Again, difficult to audition equipment in my area, but from reading multitudes of threads here some contenders might be Klipsch Forte III (everyone says they are good for rock). Spendor 7, Kef R700, Zu Audio Omens, there are multitude of others. 

And yes ,I know it's only my ears that can decide, but even if I drove to the city (Seattle being the closest) many of the speakers that are discussed on Audiogon don't seem to be available in the area.

I did like Dan's suggestion of Tannoys. How did you "Build" a manufacture's speaker? I'm a hands-on guy, sounds like a challenge.

Hello high-amp,

 I just moved and my music room went from 20x20 with a low textured ceiling to a 13x15 room with an 8’ ceiling. The new room is about to drive me nuts. I’m getting the same shrill on tunes I’ve listened to many many times.  Both rooms have/had treatments and carpeted floors. 
I’ll be watching this thread with great interest.

All the best.

JD
Some questions that are unrelated to speakers, but depending on the answers might be related to the problem:

1) Is the connection between the DAC and the Coda integrated amp balanced or unbalanced? It appears that the amp has an unbalanced input impedance of 50K, but a balanced input impedance of only 1K. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the DAC would have major sonic problems driving 1K, especially at high volume.

2) What do you have the DAC’s volume control set to? When it is set to max it outputs **very** high signal levels (5.2 volts unbalanced and 10.5 volts balanced, when the audio data is at "full scale"), and I wouldn’t be surprised if those levels could over-drive a circuit stage in the amp that is "ahead" of the amp’s volume control, such that significant distortion occurs on musical peaks. On the other hand, though, using a low setting of the DAC’s volume control might degrade its sonics somewhat. If you already haven’t done so, experimenting with various settings of the DAC’s volume control may be in order.

3) It appears that three versions of the amp exist, V1 (150/300 W for 8 and 4 ohms, respectively); V2 (250/500 W); V3 (400/800 W). Which is yours?

Regards,
-- Al
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