Most "Accurate/Realistic" Sounding Speakers?

S.J.,

If Thiels sound bright, and they can, there is a mismatch of/issues with components/cabling upstream that needs to be sorted. What is provided is reproduced.

Dave

sunnyjim,

I understand your perspective. I seem to remember feeling similarly when I heard the 1.6. It lost too much of the warmth range.

The 3.7s are both super smooth (not peaky or hashy), and I combined them with Conrad Johnson amps, in a nice sounding room. My audio-reviewer pal who said Thiels at audio shows had previously made him want to run shrieking from the room, did a 180 once he heard them in my set up. I have tinnitus and bright or peaky sound bugs my ears way before they bother most people, and the 3.7s in my set up are the smoothest, least fatiguing speaker I’ve ever owned.

And fully fleshed out in the midrange.

So what I heard with the Harbeths was a very clear, well controlled sound, with that Harbeth lushness in the midrage for vocals and other instruments that reside there. Beautifully balanced speakers. But perhaps because of the "lively cabinet" design philosophy they never quite disappeared sonically. When I played the same tracks on the Thiels it was amazing how, even being far bigger speakers, they utterly "disappeared" sonically in a way the Harbeths never did. Everything cleared up around instruments, and the sound was simultaneously as detailed or more detailed, yet more solid and "there," while, amazingly, also sounding more relaxed and organic in rendering detail They just seemed to do what speaker designers always seem aiming to attempt: sounded more "real" in all the right ways to my ears.

The Harbeths did have a certain "rounded, fleshy" character with vocals that I haven’t quite heard from other speakers, though.

My opinions:

1 - I don’t usually want LIVE volumes. I’m afraid 80% of my listening is background or late night, low volume. So I need speakers that sound good even then. Having actual performance level volumes is not my first priority

2 - Imaging. I challenge everyone to go to a live acoustic event and close their eyes and listen. Compare to home. The truth is most real life venues imaging is not that specific. Listen to a street busker even. Close your eyes and compare. IMHO, "hyper imaging" is not at all realistic and a deliberate artifact of speaker tuning.

3 - I do care about butter smooth frequency response, natural attack and decay, and the ability to convey the music, voices and environment with complete effortlessness. Again, listen to real instruments for this.

Best,

E

+1 Eric. Real instruments, especially horns, cymbals, piano, and female vocals often "bite the ears" a bit at real SPLs in real life venues.

A danger point is aggressively trying to tune this aspect of real instruments at accurate SPLs in real acoustical environments out of an audio system as other consequences inevitably accompany this path. Better just to reduce the volume...

Dave

@dlcockrum

Check out Trombone Shorty's Parking Lot Symphony though for amazing sound and dynamics and music! :)