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What does one purchase after owning horns?

I have owned Avantgarde Uno's and sold them because of the lack of bass to horn integration. I loved the dynamics, the midrange and highs. Now faced with a new speaker purchase, I demo speakers and they sound lifeless and contrived. The drama and beauty of live music and even the sound of percussion insturments like a piano are not at all convincing. I have an $8k budget for speakers give or take a thousand. My room is 13'X26' firing down the length. Any good ideas will be appreciated. My music prefrences are jazz/jazz vocalist.
renmeister
weseixas
519 posts
 
Once you get used to the low coloration of planers it will be difficult to enjoy ANY horn speaker.

Regards,
lrsky
1,118 posts
 
IMHO, anyone who says that the Sound Labs can sound 'flat' have:
1) Never heard them
2) Never heard them set up correctly
3) Simply don't have ears which I would trust for opinions.

The one's I owned, except when compared to the best MBL's set up with mega watts, sounded remarkable...and I rue the day I sold them...ahhhh, divorce.

Good listening.

Larry
jeff1225
172 posts
 
I would second the calls for good, full range electrostatics. I've heard the Soundlabs and the largest new Quads and tought they sounded as "alive" as my horns.

BTW,the newest Avantgardes do a much better job of intregrating bass.
audiokinesis
2,737 posts
 
My thanks to those of you who have mentioned my speakers, sometimes even in the same breath as SoundLabs. For the record, my bipolar models indeed deliberately seek to emulate some of the radiation pattern characteristics of the pre-PX series SoundLabs (the PX series has a narrower pattern than I can reasonably replicate). As I told Roger West, creator of SoundLabs, my aspiration is to build the second-best speakers... well, within their general price ballpark.

Duke
(disclaimer: SoundLab dealer & speaker manufacturer)
chadeffect
586 posts
 
As you have owned an AG you will probably be able to dismiss comments about coloration.

The Uno is challenged in the area where the sub meets the mid horn, but the further you go up the AG range the more that is fixed. The subs cut off is much lower.

I have no idea what size room the person who reckons his soundlabs are as dynamic has? Maybe if used as headphones! When compared to an AG horn in the 105- 110 db/watt sensitivity, a planar just cannot do that kind of impact and poise.

Some people have no idea what kind of freedom and dynamic range we are discussing here. It is not until you have lived with a high sensitivity speaker like the AGs, as you have, that you realize how flat and compressed the planars and nearly all other speaker systems are. This not to say speakers like the soundlabs are not dynamic, just not as dynamic.

Go listen, they will sound distant and not as clear as your AG. At worst they will sound congested with limp bass next to an AG. The bass will be deep bass, but without the feeling of weight or 3 dimensional depth. Plus your choice of amp with an AG is a whole other joy as I have found. All those huge amps to drive insensitive speakers impact greatly on the sound too.
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