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Small room, "budget priced" speaker advice, please

Hi,

I recently sold my dearly beloved, old Vandersteen 2C's here on Audiogon (and I hope SgtPeppers is loving them at this moment!) :-) I did this because in our remodeled house, my new listening room (which will double as a guest room) is just too small for the 2C's. The Spousal Acceptance Factor was just too low. ;-)

I have a PS Audio Elite-Plus integrated amp for power (around 70 W/Ch) and a soon-to-be-shipped-off-for-a-refurb Sota Sapphire for an analog front end (I have "miles" of vinyl)! I will also get a CD player at some point.

For now, I need to find a pair of best-of-breed, truly "budget" speakers. By "budget," I'm talking upper limit of $850/pair. (Gone are my free-spending, single days... I'm a dad now...) :-)

Listening habits: lots of 60's and 70's folk and rock, some jazz, Donald Fagen/Steely Dan, a little classical. Listening volume: not too loud. Sonic preferences: I value transparency and imaging/soundstage. Bass should be accurate above all, as opposed to chest-pounding powerful.

I've looked at Paradigms, which I know are highly regarded at lower price points. Trouble is, our one, local dealer is primarily a TV/home theater outfit, so you're trying to hear them in a showroom crammed with other stuff... you know the drill. I've also hit a high end shop. Listened to a pair of PSB small towers and disliked them; they sounded muddy and veiled to me. Listened to a pair of the smallest Rega's and liked them quite a bit, but would want to go back to listen again. I even wrote to PS Audio for advice; they recommended the "baby" Epos monitors, but they're out of my price range.

Thanks if you've read this far. Knowing how subjective all this is, I'd still welcome any advice you have to offer about what I should try to audition.
rebbi
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,464 posts
 
Hi Rebbe,

I have Audioquest CV-6 cables. The Dynaudios, which have a hot top end to start with, perhaps more so than the Arros as I recall sound a bit hot at first listen. The Ohm 5s on the CV6s currently are very laid back by nature and the spades connect similarly in my case to what you describe. No ill effects as you describe there.

The Audioquest G Snake IC on my Roku soundbridge is also bright but balanced in a good way and not a problem.

My experience with these two Audioquest products seem to indicate the line does have a brighter top end than some other lines I've heard, but not necessarily a problematic top end, in fact it seems to work well for me at least in my case. I doubt the Audioquest speaker cables are a problem with a tube amp and Arros when everything is broken in, but you never know...never heard that particular model. Maybe just brighter compared to what you had before?

Breakin may help. GIve it a chance.

Do you still have your old speak cables? Maybe try adding just the new ICs first without the new speak cables and see what that sounds like, then try adding just the new speak cables and judge that configuration in comparison. THen try both together and see what happens there. I think you have 4 possible IC/cable combos you can try at this point among old and new wires. Try each combo as a test and see how each compares. Then decide which is best to start with. You can and should try a different combo again later as well if you so please.

Also, remind me what the IC is connecting to the amp? IS it a CD player or the turntable? What kind of CD player if so?
rebbi OP
1,326 posts
 
Mapman,

Hey, thanks for responding!

The current IC is just some old Monster Cable IC with gold plated RCA terminations. The CD player is a new Music Hall CD 25.2. (I finally heard from SOTA, by the way, and should have my refurbished and slightly upgraded Sapphire back in 10 days or so!)

I think I'll take your advice and try the new IC first with the old speaker cable, see what that sounds like, and then try various permutations of the different wires. What kind of surprised me about the new AQ speaker cables was not so much the brightness, but that the "air" seemed sucked out of things.

In any case, I'll give break in time and just go with what sounds best for now.

By the way, I now no longer doubt that different cables sound different... it's not even subtle if you listen at all carefully.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,464 posts
 
I used to be skeptical about the cable thing too. Not any more. Either my ears are better or my system more sensitive or both.

One other thought I had is that power conditioning would probably only help if not already in place, especially with the highly accurate Totems...should help clear things up further if needed. I use a Monster Power HTS1000 strip that cost ~ $150 new a few years back and it too made a noticeable difference by removing audible haze and making things sound tighter and cleaner.

If you still have air and/or brightness issues after all this, I'd still recommend trying the DNM Reson interconnects as a possible solution. They are very "British and refined" sounding BRitish ICs, kind of like adding a touch of the B&W sound to the mix, if you know what I mean. Might be just the thing to tame things down a bit as it does nicely with my Japanese made Denon CD.
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knownothing
1,620 posts
 
Rebbi,

Hey - I would run the new ICs and speaker cables for a LONG TIME and then compare them to the Monster cables. I have both AudioQuest Diamondback ICs and Type 4 cables and found the ICs sounded great right away - and got better over time - sounding smoother, more detailed and providing more air than the Monsters I had been using. The Type 4 speaker cable on the other hand sounded awful when first installed compared to generic 14 gauge bulk cable I had been using, just dead, dead, dead. What a disappointment! I left them in to see if they would open up, and after a bunch of hours (months really of off and on listening) they did open up and now sound much better than the old generic cables and some stranded AQ cable I have in my HT system. Very natural and coherent with no hash or smearing that I can notice. This is why I recommended a long break-in period in previous post.

Moral here is wait and the hash should go away - and I found it took longer to warm up the AQ speaker cables than it did their ICs.

As for Power conditioners, I would be very careful about that, with all due respect to Mapman. I used one in my home system for a while, but I have very clean power in my house, and ultimately found that the power conditioner didn't change the noise floor but was "smoothing" out the sound by clipping the transient peaks off the music (BAD!). On the other hand, I have a cheaper system at work in a commercial building with lots of computers, florescent lights and other electrical "stuff". The power there is not so clean and so a power conditioner helps remove nasty hash and noise, making the presentation noticeably more musical.

Try before you buy a power conditioner if possible.
rebbi OP
1,326 posts
 
Mapman, Knownothing,

Well, this is very interesting. I finally got to replace the old Monster Cable interconnects between the CD player and Amp with the new Audioquest Coral CQ cables, and there's quite a difference. Most of the harshness disappears, and a lot of the "dimensionality" and "air" has returned. So perhaps the AQ speaker cables + the Arro's were revealing shortcomings in the old interconnects? Anyway, I'll try to chill out and just give the whole system some time to burn in before jumping to any conclusions. Thanks!
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