Small room, "budget priced" speaker advice, please

Asa,

Oh, and by the way, I hear that Totem drives their speakers with Naim electronics at shows these days, FWIW.

Mapman,

It's a deal... actually, I was in DC last spring!

Rebbi,

You are welcome - my hobby, not a problem.

If and when you consider another amp, I suggest you look at the units described in this link:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1211126685&openusid&zzKnownothing&4&5#Knownothing

After recent listening sessions, I would also recommend the match to the your new CDP, the Music Hall a25.2, as a viable and less expensive alternative to the others. This amp will not provide the magic I hear in the PrimaLuna products (sweetness combined with abundant drive and definition), or the overwhelming PRAT of the Nait integrated amps. But it will provide hours of sour-note-free listening and will mate well with your new CDP. And for what, like $600 bucks???

Anyway, enjoy your new CDP and speakers. The warmer sound of the Music Hall CDP should compliment the PS Audio amp. Once you have given everything a couple hundred hours to run in, I think you will be very happy.

Wanted to toss this into the sub-discussion on this thread regarding omni versus conventional imaging.

Was just listening to "Open Arms" by Journey on standard issue "Greatest Hits CD" on my larger Ohm 5's.

This track has an interesting piano solo opening that lends itself well as a test case in point to the discussion regarding imaging.

Now I doubt anybody would cite these Journey tunes as shining examples of simple two mike audiophile recordings, because overall they are the exact opposite. Also, I've found over the years that many of these Journey tunes sound crappy on crappy systems but hold together pretty well overall on better systems.

So here is what I hear on the Ohm 5's. The piano solo is clearly miked in stereo in a manner that individual keys are clearly located in correct order by note and octave from lower to the left to upper to the right. This is about an 18-20' wide sound stage with my setup, so there is clear separation between individual keys. Also, the soundstage ranges from almost floor level to the ceiling, about 8-9 feet tall.

I also then listened to the same passage on my Dynaudio Contour mkIIs. This is same source and everything with my system. The only difference is the room, which is much smaller, 12X12 approximately, speaks, and speaker cables used. The Dynaudios use Audioquest cv-6 speaker cables which cost something like several hundred dollars whereas fairly conventional industrial grade in-wall speaker wires run to the Ohms.

With the Dynaudios, similar results. However in the smaller room, with narrower sound stage, the individual notes were more closely spaced and a bit harder to pick out accordingly, yet everything still was located in the correct relative position based on note and octave. The soundstage was not as extended vertically and tended to occur mostly at about the same height as the monitors on their stands.

Now once the rest of the tune kicked in, it is no longer even a fair contest. The Dynaudios would need a subwoofer in order to have any chance of hanging with the Ohms in terms of overall impact, dynamics and presentation at a realistic SPL.

Knownothing wrote:

"After recent listening sessions, I would also recommend the match to the your new CDP, the Music Hall a25.2, as a viable and less expensive alternative to the others."

Yeah, I had thought of the a25.2. Wally at Underwood HiFi has them for $480! You can't beat that price. I'd just need to add a phono preamp to that. Any suggestions there?