Focal Aria 936 / Elac Adante AF-61 / Von Schweikert VR-33 , impressions, thoughts?


Thinking of upgrading my speakers and in the past have just gone with what I thought was a great deal, sometimes that worked, more often it did not!

Have a shortlist right now of those 3 speakers.

Focal Aria 936
Elac Adante AF-61
Von Schweikert VR-33

Presently using Triangle Altea ESW speakers.

What am I lacking right now? Possibly some lower bass, the Triangles are superb in the mids and upper registers but you can definitely tell they areĀ  a little limp below 40hz. And at the end of the day even though I consider them to be fantastic speakers, they were after all only 2k brand new so there are likely better options out there to consider.


So thoughts and impressions on those 3 speakers or any serious contenders in the same sort of price bracket, I am looking at used examples only so think 3k max.

Will be driving them with an Ayre AX-7E integrated which I will NOT be changing anytime soon (famous last words I know!)

Thank you
128x128uberwaltz
As well documented over the years I have a terrible acoustic room which is one reason I had gone to the Lyngdorf 2170 for the room correction to help.

This it did but there were other factors I ended up not liking too much on that amp and now use an Ayre ax7e.

Room is 4 walls of glass and a tiled floor....lol. And in case you are wondering how? It is actually an extension that was built on back of house as a Florida/sun room,hence the sloped ceiling as house is 2 storey and 3 sides of glass windows and 1 side of double glass sliding doors back into main house.
Have three huge soft sofas in there, large shaggy rug covering most of floor and wood window blinds on all windows and this helped a lot on any configuration of system. Oh and a sloped ceiling raising up back towards where the equipment and speakers are. When I do move house I will have a better room but this is what I am dealing with right now.

Best position I have found for any speakers in here has always ended up being roughly the same.

Approx 10 feet apart, and 3 feet in from back wall and side wall. Toed in so if I am the dead center at approx 7.5 feet distance, then they would converge approx 3 feet behind me. By trial this has always given best results prior to the 936. The DeVore Gibbon sound REALLY good set up like this .

Working away all this week so will not get any time to play until next Sunday.
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Well one change would kill two birds there then.
If i pull them more intogether say 7.5 to 8 feet apart that would give and unequal corner distance, easy change to try.
Tbh in my room I have not had ANY speakers in tighter together that the present 10ft, maybe I have been missing setup altogether for a while!
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