Dual duty and LOUD


I have the upgrade bug and am looking to replace my main speakers (Infinity kappa 9). My room size is 17x21 and my speakers are about 12 feet apart and I sit 10 feet back in a sweet spot. I need a speaker that is for music 80% of the time and AV for the rest. I have plenty of amplification so efficent is not an issue. I use aragon pallidium mono blocks for my mains and an aragon 2005 for the center and surrounds. I'm not opposed to using a sub-woofer, I have a M&k Mk70. but it not nessary to use it. I mainly listen to classic rock and Blues. I have a second system for Jazz and classical that I listen to at much lower volume levels. I was wondering if my room is too small for planners. I do like full range speakers but would consider a monitor if it was large enough to put out some decent bass. Paradigm studio 40s come to mind.
What I'm looking for is a speaker and has lots of detail and plays crystal clear at high volume with good punch in the bass and crispy highs. It would also be nice if they sounded good at lower volume too! I haven't heard many high end speakers and I don't have many good stores in the Cleveland area to audition speakers so this site will have to be my startig point
Here are some of the speakers I have been considering
1. Vandersteens A good rock speaker or so they say
2. Paradigm studio 100s or their larger monitors
3. Canton Ergo 902. I love the clairity and detail of Cantons I have heard in the past but I haven't heard any of their currunt offereings
4. Maggies I will need some help here. anyone care to chime in?
5 Von schweikirt Maybe??
If there are others you feel I should consider let me know. It has been my experence that most expensive audiofile speakers are not loud enough for my liking so please keep this in mind. These speakers will be abused and used for movies also. I will most likely buy used so I can get more bang for my buck. <5k.
Does this speaker exist? Let my hear your comments
coman61
As you say, you have lots of amplification, so that is not as issue. In the price range you mention IMHO, the Vandersteins are wonderful! I love the 3A's but even any of the 2's are fine also. The VCC would give you a center channel for not much more money, and, I think that would make you a happy camper! The Maggie's are faster, more immediacy, and, Lord knows, you've got the amps for them. But, they are physically larger, and, unless you get huge ones, would likely benefit from your subwoofer. A friend of mine has several pairs and they all sound really good, too. I've never heard the Von Schweikirt's, as you already know, they have a good reputation. For the money, though, I vote for the Vandy's.
Coman61, I have quite a bit of experience with various planar speakers and unfortunately I don't think that's the answer for you.

I think your requirements might be best served by loudspeakers that use high quality prosound drivers.

One of the challenges that can arise with conventional speakers is differing power compression characteristics among the drivers. Briefly, different drivers don't all get louder at the same rate as the input power is increased (theoretically it's 3 dB for each doubling of input power, but in practice this is rare outside of prosound drivers). This phenomenon is called "power compression", or sometimes "thermal compression", and there's a correlation between low power compression and high efficiency. Usually tweeters are padded down to match woofers, and usually tweeters have less power compression than woofers. So what happens is the designer picks a loudness range in which the speaker will sound balanced. At much lower volume levels, the woofer is louder than the tweeter so the speaker sounds dull. And then at very high volume levels, the tweeter is louder than the woofer so the speaker sounds bright. You may have noticed this with some speakers.

One of the advantages of single-driver speakers is that the tonal balance doesn't change with loudness level. But single-driver speakers lose articulation at high volume levels because the voice coil travels beyond its linear limits on loud bass passages.

Prosound drivers are not immune - they do suffer from power compression at high power levels, but typically we're talking about levels that would produce in excess of 115 dB. So it's essentially a non-issue at SPL's likely in a home environment. If you want a speaker that really holds it together at very low to very high volume levels, high quality prosound drivers make a lot of sense.

I've e-mailed you about a speaker I sell that uses high quality prosound drivers. Other contenders would be Klipsch Heritage series and Pi Speakers. Going well north of your price range, Classic Audio Reproductions, eXemplar, Avantgarde, and Edgarhorn come to mind.

Best of luck in your quest!

Duke
I don't think many people would consider the Vandy's as a good rock speaker. I listen to rock & blues exclusively, I owned the Vandy 2Ci sigs, they were nice but too polite for rock. I also heated the cones up so bad one night the warning lights came on, not the best for a "rock" speaker. When I called Richard the next day he said I must have been listening at "drinking levels", which I was. I have used that term ever since & he was 100% correct. I loved the sound of the Vandy's & would own another pair but didn't find it to be the best match for my listening tastes.

I now have a pair of VSA VR4jr's & my friend has a pair of VR4's, they are definitely a dynamic speaker with some slam. They are nuetral & fast, they can reproduce the thunder of a live show or the delicacy of a single wind instrument if called for. Most of the time people recommend "lower end" speakers when people are looking to rock but I think it's a cop out. There are plenty of high end speakers with dynamics & slam, you just have to poke around.