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Considering Wilson or Sonus Faber floor standing over my Rockport monitors & Wisdom Sub

Hello All,

I have a pair of Rockport Mira Monitors with a Wisdom SCS subwoofer, driven by Audio Research tube amp and preamp.  I am considering a move to a floor standing speaker.  The Wilson Sophia 2 and the Sonus Faber Cremona M or Sonus Faber Olympica III all caught my eyes.

As it is, I am getting very good bass with the Wisdom SCS sub, and great sound from the Rockports.  What will a move to a similarly classed floor standing model over the monitors and sub give me?  I wonder at the ability of the monitors & sub compared to a singularly designed floor standing speaker.

My room is not dedicated, and the living room where the system is opens to the left to a dining area, and there is an open foyer behind the listening position.  The listening area itself affords about 9.5 feet between the speakers, and an equilateral triangle to the listening position.  The speakers are about 4 feet off the back wall.  The left speaker has the open dining room to the left.  The right speaker has about 3 feet to the right side wall.

My Rockports are relatively insensitive at 85db, so a move to an 89db or 90db speaker would be a welcomed one.

Do you think a floor standing speaker on this level (Sophia 2 / Cremona M / Olympica III) will be a dramatic improvement over what I have?

The details of my system can be seen here: https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/5421

Thanks!
- Mark
marktomaras
jwm
918 posts
 
Buy a full size Rockport much better than the ones you mentioned.
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,778 posts
 
without a doubt a better floor standing speaker will improve upon what you have, even with a subwoofer, a monitor tends to couple with the room and sound smaller and less dramatic then a larger floor standing speaker.

Personally I think there are even better speakers out there for the same money then either the Wilsons of Sonus. It depends on budget and your musical taste. 
jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
Whoa Mark, you are really all over the map here. In the last 5 days you have asked about changing your amplifier, and then phono stage to help try and solve a noise/gain issues. And now you're looking at changing speakers.

I think you would be best served to step back, take a breath, and address this whole thing more logically. I believe that on the one thread we seemed to narrow down the culprit to your Whest phono stage, correct?
I think the best thing to do is to send the Whest back to England for a thorough checkup. Maybe not what you want to hear, but then that is something we all have to consider when buying gear, the service aspect.

As for speakers, you are still all over the map. Wilson and Sonus Faber could hardly be more different from each other. Wilson is very resolving, while Sonus Faber is very musical.

When changing directions, it helps to know which direction you want to head in.
One does not simply say "I want to move, should I move west or east?".
You'll get more helpful advice if you choose the direction.
Say "I want to move west of Omaha, where would you recommend?".

It's understandable to be frustrated with your system when things are not sounding the way you would like them to. Patience will serve you well in the end though. Just buying a whole new system may not resolve your issues, especially if the root cause winds up being grounding issues.
Speaking of which, did you try lifting the ground on your Whest?

Cheers,
John
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