Speaker Preferences?

Hey. I just replaced ML Requests with Aerial 9's.

The MLs can have a really spectacular sound when they are firing on all cylinders. However, I spent 9 years fiddling with the placement and could never nail it, especially when I played a variety of styles of music (a placement that worked w/jazz did not work for Rock, etc) . My room is about the size of yours (15x 22) and I just think they need a much bigger room. I also don't think they are a good rock speaker and don't sound particularly good at high volumes (incredible, however, at low voloumes).

I was nervous about replacing the MLs, but I am glad I did. After listening to newer MLs, Dynaudio, Revel, B&W, Wilson, I got the Aerials. I could not be happier. They work perfectly in my medium size room. Huge soundstage, great imaging, very neutral. Most importantly for me, they sound good with all kinds of music and sound good at both low and high volumes.

The 9s are a little out of your stated price range, but can presently be had on Gon for $5800. Highly recommended and worth a listen along with the others you mentioned.

at the risk of being labelled an elitist, why is speaker selection so critical if recordings feature mainly amplified instruments ?

Hang on...acoustic instruments all sound different too!

How can you judge what is real timbre anymore than with amplified music?

Sabian, for example, hand make cymbals...each one probably sounds different.

Sir Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music had period instruments copied/rebuilt so they could replicate the timbre of the day.

Pavorotti caried throat lozenges in his pocket handkerchief that he used to wipe his brow..surely that affected the sound outcome too

Perhaps the quickest/easiest test for timbre are male and female vocals so may be you have a point about unamplified... but even this is not perfect (I'll grant you that at least we are all skilled at recognizing voices)

So how to decide, for me it is easy. I tend to trust others who have ample opportunity for direct comparisons to "real" sounds.

My rsuggestion would be to audition a pro main monitor that studios use to impress clients with. If clients can be impressed by listening to themselves in a studio (just after a recording session) then the speaker/system must be doing something right in terms of accuracy. There are many speakers to choose from in this category and most are very good over a wide range of music. Although even in this case, microphone selection and placement can do a lot to influence the sound. One Nashville studio claims to have $1 Million invested in microphones alone...go figure!

Or like J. Gordon Holt...he selected a speaker that made his own recordings sound the most like the live event itself.

At the end of the day, I'd suggest that all sounds (amplified or not) must be all weighed and accounted for in the speaker selection. However, something like Sheffield Drum Track is a good starting point; great eliminator disc, as most systems fail that one altogether, and if a speaker can't do transients convincingly then how can any system connected to it begin to even hope to get timbre right...

So my quick check would be Sheffield Drum track followed by all kinds of vocals, and then loads of different instruments.

Shredder,

I will look into the Aerial 9s... if you were impressed with them and you had ML background, it may be something I'd like to audition. Just for kicks. And if they are truly better, well... que sera sera... this is life.

Joey

Joey. Don't get me wrong, I love MLs. If I had a bigger room, I would probably still have them.

I am pretty happy with the Aerials though. Definitely worth a listen.

If a speaker's finicky positioning scares you, then don't get it. There's a lot of other brands out there.

You bet it does, and that is why I said "Those seem like even greater reasons to stay away from that speaker line to me...."

Why do I want to waste years hoping I've finally got it right, yet never knowing if I did? That kind of situation just bothers me, and I WILL obsess over it. For me it is very simple... Rives Audio designed my room and gave a central location that would work best for the speakers, then my Wilson dealer came out and found the voicing did actually fall within those areas suggested by Rives Audio. I've even measured the speakers in and around those positions and I'm happy to say that the dealer and Rives Audio nailed it!

I have no idea who sets them up better. The point is, if it takes that much work to set them up, and no one is qualified until they've spent a year with it (like you have), why would I care to torture myself?!?

The Wilsons are not hard to set up, I learned the voicing technique partially before the dealer arrived, and the rest after he got there. I needed help with learning to hear the "swimming voice" sound once you get too far from the closer wall boundary and start getting feedback from the opposite wall. My friend and I found the same relative area as the dealer on our own using the WASP technique. The dealer was actually pretty surprised that we managed to locate the general area on our own. There are actually acoustical correspondances between the areas where the ceiling soffits end and the tray ceiling begins (basically where the greater room volume begins and the smaller part of the room opens up) that correspond with the zone of neutrality. It was a cool experience, because it taught me something about how acoustical space anomalies can correspond to "localization" and "focus."