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Classical speakers that do violins well??

All my serious listening is classical.

I hate nothing more than steely shrillness on violins or a glare on a soprano's voice.

I love nothing more than the faithful reproduction of the tone colors of unamplified instruments (the wood body of the violin and cello, the felt pad excting the sinewy strings of a piano).

YET, I hate bloated, indistinct, overly warm, billowy lower mids and upper bass (what I gather some think of as "musical").

Do you have any experience with speakers that might meet these needs for $2K, give or take (new or used)? Can be either floorstander or monitor, but with at least enough bass to perform decently on orchestral music. THANKS.
-Bob
hesson11
dcstep
1,518 posts
 
Yeah, that Stereophile Test CD is great. Every audiophile should get one and listen to it all the way through.

I love my B Babies. I paid full retail and don't regret it at all because I got great service from my dealer and they're incredible.

If you've got time to wait, save a little more and a good deal will show up on A-gon eventually. I wanted the Strausses originally but finally got the B Babies when it was apparent that I'd be in a sixth floor apartment until sometime in 2009. When I move to a larger place I may just add a REL subwoofer.

Dave
audiojan's avatar
audiojan
390 posts
 
You won't be able to beat Magnepan MG1.6's for classical!
dcstep
1,518 posts
 
02-05-08: Audiojan said:
"You won't be able to beat Magnepan MG1.6's for classical!"

I beg to differ. ;-)

Dave
rleff
1,065 posts
 
I think my soundlab m2's do quite well; driven by tubes they have a very good synergy.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,467 posts
 
Since we're talking about microphones, does anyone have a copy of the first Stereophile test CD? On it, J. Gordon Holt reads one of his articles through a series of changing mics. It's only a slight exaggeration to say that he sounds like a different person on different mics. The differences are really ear-opening

You can buy Mic and A to D converter test CD's here

Since pros know a bit about audio reproduction, researching what pros use is a viable alternative to making your own tests in a room with a microphone and a cymbal (unless you are prepared to test hundreds of consumer speakers I am not sure if this approach could be very productive - and what if a speaker does a cymbal well but many other things badly?).

There are pro audio forums such as Gearlutz where they discuss gear. Of course, they have individual differing opinions and a large number of pro speaker models are all considered acceptable (with of course a few very odd individual choices thrown in too!)...however there is often a general consensus on what sounds really good.
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