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What does one purchase after owning horns?

I have owned Avantgarde Uno's and sold them because of the lack of bass to horn integration. I loved the dynamics, the midrange and highs. Now faced with a new speaker purchase, I demo speakers and they sound lifeless and contrived. The drama and beauty of live music and even the sound of percussion insturments like a piano are not at all convincing. I have an $8k budget for speakers give or take a thousand. My room is 13'X26' firing down the length. Any good ideas will be appreciated. My music prefrences are jazz/jazz vocalist.
renmeister
dan_ed
2,451 posts
 
Good luck, but as you have found, no audiophile speaker will give you what you are looking for. I'd bet that Uno would have stayed if it had a big, bass horn to play with. ;-)
rodge827's avatar
rodge827
619 posts
 
Hello,
I have been fortunate to own and listen to some great horn systems (6moons road tour exit 1). Also I have owned many other type of single driver speakers as well. A couple of weeks ago I demo'ed a pair of Shelby + Kroll Nano Monitors with their bass unit. I immediatly called Tim Kroll and ordered a set of the Nano Monitors with 2 Bass units for my largish room. 30 day MBG! You will never own a horn system again! They are replacing my Medalliom 2's with Lowther DX4's and Decware WO32 Sub system.
chadeffect
586 posts
 
I would forget planars. You will never get that freedom you had from a horn like the AG. I like soundlabs. I love and owned many of the planar breed. I have yet to hear a planar that can do what a Trio or even Duo can do. No matter how much power/current you use you always have a flatness dynamically. Everything else is similar but that weight and freedom is just not there with electrostatic or ribbons.

I suspect you will feel robbed if you go the planar route after AG horns.
duomike
76 posts
 
I totally agree with chadeffect. once you get used to the effortless dynamics of a good horn system it will be very difficult to enjoy ANY planar speaker. you have already sold your unos, otherwise I'd have made some suggestions how to overcome the bass integration problem.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,793 posts
 
Duke of Audiokinesis introduced a new speaker at RMAF called the Strato-Prism. This speaker was easy to drive (16 ohms) and has good efficiency and plays deep bass rather well! (in addition to being very musical, cohesive and revealing) Its not as efficient as the Uno, but 30 watts is plenty of power on it. Plus the price is great- $4800 for the pair if I recall right.
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