Road trip to demo $10,000 speakers

skyscraper,

These days, you can live smack in the middle of Manhattan and it won’t help you much when picking equipment. Hard to find a walk-in store, to begin with. In fact, it seems to me that Washington, DC area is much better in that sense.

Let us know how you progress and what you eventually settle on. All of us here are curious and virtually playing...with your money.

Charles, I am not sure if you are related to Legacy, but you did an excellent job and I will make sure not to miss their room.

I’d appreciate your honest recommend on exact models

skyscraper, I could not presume. I know next to nothing about your environment, level you listen, range of programme AND your particular peccadillos.

For example, minimum phase error from sub 30Hz up is ne plus ultra for yhs. Accurate sound staging, rock solid focus that does not wander, accurate hall delineation, merciless exposure of recording engineer gimcrackery, proper vertical height and location. See http://www.ieLogical.com/Audio and read the Audio pages under PASSIONS menu.

Many models recommended here fail miserably in that regard. Multiple woofer/mid drivers and mid & tweeters on a flat baffle fail impossibly on that metric. Ported systems have horrible low end phase coherence.

Since retiring, I’ve made several road trips having avoided HiFi Dens for 15 years. I have a friend with an amazing B&W 803 D3 system north of $250k. No dealer had a pair setup that came anywhere near exhibiting their potential.

One loudspeaker mentioned has a "perforated phase-aligning lens" over mid and tweet. The $12.5k model failed miserably on phase coherence, sound stage and imaging.

Another $8k 2-way had the kick image smeared along a front to back slope. The point was in front of the speakers and the heft behind and out of phase! Vocal was an indistinct cloud. I recorded and mixed ref #2 above and have listened to it for 35 years.

Many here will poo-poo my modest system. It fails not on my parameters because has been assembled with specific goals.

My recommendation would be to have the ’squids rebuilt, get some great electronics that mate them well and match your bias. Decent cables would be nice. So would a pair of good subs - NOT PORTED!!! See http://www.ielogical.com/Audio/SubTerrBlues.php for trials and tribulations of sub integration.

Bonne chance!

Maybe best just going and not saying anything.   

Skyscraper.

I have Janszen zA2.1 hybrid electrostats with Linear Tube Audio amp and pre driving them. Worth a listen, trust me.

Also, what are the dimensions of your listening room?

Lance

Shkong78, Ive added the Martin Logan Impression ESL 11A’s to the spreadsheet. Thanks.for the link too.

Jafant, glad to hear you had such good results from you search and afterwards. That’s encouraging. Any audio stores in Baltimore you particularly like or have had good experiences with.

Glupson, You’re so right about how the NYC retail scene has changed,since the advent of the internet especially, Brick and mortar of all sorts has been disappearing at an alarming rate, not just audio outlets. When my wife was still alive we tried to go to the Garment District to find some drapery material, only to find most of the fabric stores had disappeared. It was shocking. I miss all the old record stores/outlets too.

Ieales. Sorry you wouldn’t presume to make recommends or at least point out some speakers you found lacking without more info. My listening room is approximately 13 feet by 22 feet with a cathedral ceilng that goes up to maybe 15 feet from the floor on a 12/12 pitch, centered on the short walls Picture how a five year old might draw a house and you got the configuration. The two side and the back walls are lined with book shelves as the room doubles as a library. The room has three dormer windows on the back wall, one centered and the others equidistant and eight feet apart with 2 foot by 7 foot long "corridor" leading to them on that wall. Have oak floors, speakers will go on the front long wall,

I like to listen to 1950’s jazz, think Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, etc, Actually everything, other than Ornette Coleman type free form, from Ellington, then Charlie Parker on through to Weather Report. Dating myself, I love late sixties rock and roll groups, and R&B artists, everything from the earliest rock and roll and doo wop up through punk. Think Stones,Joplin, Hendrix, Aretha etc., through Bowie and the Clash. I like fifties rock and roll, and blues too. I have some classical and other material and world music, though not lots. I listen to music at moderate sound levels usually, picture maybe a bit more loudly than you might typically listen to TV. I like a clean sound where I can hear all the detail and the speaker disappear. Muddy and poor source material I find irritating.

You obviously are well versed in this area, way more than me, so I’m trying to squeeze some more direction out of you or at least some speakers you’d avoid or don’t meet your parameters. And by the way what are ’squids?

Twoch, I’ve always had way to many questions for that approach, and way too little expertise to be making sound decisions. I know just about enough to be dangerous especially after a forty year layoff in stereo equipment research and purchasing.

Lancelock, Thanks for the Janzen electrostatic recommend. I’ll keep an eye out. I listed my room dimensions just above in my response to ieales. Thank you for your interest and asking.

Thanks again all.

Mike