High value, high efficiency speakers for SET amps
Hey Map those MHDT units are musical if not the last word in detail, they get tone right. Better than the other way around. The Havana was my favorite before I purchased a Modwright Oppo, it was just so enjoyable and engaging contrary to some of the others with greater detail maybe but always something distracting and ultimately irritating, one of them became unlistenable. I've been out of the budget DAC game for a few years so don't have a clue as to how things have changed, I expect quite a bit but really it always comes down to how a given component is going to work in a given set-up, there are seemingly few absolutes. |
Tube I'd agree with your assessment of the mhdt dacs. Both I own share the same positive traits though one is tube and sensitive to tube rolling and the SS and just darn good as it is. Either sounds similarly excellent with most any good quality source I've used over the years and I've used quite a few with both always with great success. I used to covet dcs gear. That is my reference for how good digital can sound. I'm not saying the mhdts are as good as dcs but whatever the difference that might exist I find it does not matter to me. These things just make good music! The enjoy the sound review from a few years back nailed it exactly I have found. |
Earlier on in the thread, someone had mentioned Spatial. If you don't know, Clayton Shaw founded Spatial to continue to develop open baffle, controlled directivity speakers after leaving Emerald Physics. His latest, which debuted at THE Show in Newport, is the Spatial M3. It is rated at 94 dB efficient, goes down to 32 Hz, and has been getting (like the rest of the Spatial lineup) rave reviews from the press. The price is $1499 plus shipping (which, at 75 lb. per side, isn't cheap). See here. He has links to the reviews, too. Interesting! Clayton says they sound great with a 300B SET but you'd want to use the 4 Ohm taps on an amp, which, in the case of the Kit 1, would require some trivial rewiring. |
I can't see a moderate size and cost open baffle design working particularly well from an efficiency perspective with a low power amp. The box size in conjunction with drivers is what delivers extended bass efficiently. Those drivers would have to outperform most any others similar by a wide margin to do that which seems unlikely. But you never know. Open baffle has its charms otehrwise much like a SET does, so I suppose again its more a matter of what is valued most and what tradeoffs will be made on a limited budget. Of course I have not heard them. They just might be the cat's meow. There is no substitution for extended auditions in a case like this. |
