Concert Experience for $5k?
I suggest you seek a speaker with 8 Ohms impedance and at least 92-93dB sensitivity, and preferably higher. Speakers with such characteristics have a lot of liveliness to them. They are not the "end all, be all," but they would be able to deliver much of the impact and vibrancy you seek. You may wish to reject any speaker with 8" bass driver(s) or under. You may be a candidate for the newer large Cerwin Vega speakers which were said to be surprisingly good for the money; 6Ohms and 95dB - perfect. There are a few reviews, I believe on the Net. Now, I'm not saying they will be better than most of the others mentioned, but imo when you are playing music at too loud levels you are introducing all manner of distortions no matter what speakers you are using. Given enough level a high end speaker which is incapable of such performance can distort with the best of them. So, if you are to rock such as to knock the fillings out of your teeth, then why spend audacious sums to do it? So, go for it, and FEEL the distortion! In all seriousness, it's another way of being a listener and getting into the music. :) |
I would strongly urge you to reflect upon the following paragraph in Stereophile’s measurements of your amplifier: ...allowing for some variation in the calculated output impedance with the level and load impedance used, we’re looking at source impedances of 5.5 ohms (8 ohm tap) and 2.8 ohms (4 ohm tap) in triode mode. While these are both high, they are exceeded by the ultralinear figures: 12 and 6 ohms, respectively! Fortunately, the impedances don’t change much across the audioband, but, as figs.1-3 reveal, there will be a large and audible change in frequency response depending on which loudspeaker is used with the Cary and which transformer tap and mode of operation are used.The review is at www.stereophile.com/content/cary-cad-280sa-v12-power-amplifier-measurements. While many of the suggestions made above can be expected to be good ones in most circumstances, unless a speaker being considered is known to have an impedance curve that does not vary significantly as a function of frequency, I would not count on it sounding similar with your amplifier to what others may report based on experiences with other amplifiers. An audition prior to purchase would seem to be even more essential in this case than in most others. A speaker such as some of the Zu models, however, which in some cases have very high nominal and minimum impedances (e.g. 16 ohms nominal, 10 ohms min), will minimize that concern. Although that kind of impedance characteristic would introduce a different concern, which is that your amp does not provide a 16 ohm output tap. Using an 8 ohm tap with a 16 ohm speaker may reduce the amp’s power capability and increase its distortion, perhaps not greatly but the degree is hard to predict. So I would add to Doug’s good suggestion of an 8 ohm speaker having 92 or 93 db sensitivity, or thereabouts, that it would be highly desirable for the speaker to have as little variation in its impedance vs. frequency curve as possible, especially if an audition is not possible. Impedance vs. frequency curves are generally included in Stereophile’s speaker reviews. Given the output impedance characteristics of your amp, as a general rule of thumb frequencies at which speaker impedance is high will receive significantly greater emphasis with your amplifier than frequencies at which speaker impedance is low. And, conversely, frequencies at which speaker impedance is low will receive significantly less emphasis with your amplifier than frequencies at which speaker impedance is high. Good luck in your search. Regards, -- Al |
