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Speaker shootout update; aggressive treble eliminating some (fairly?)

I've been trying out speakers in a complicated shoot out, both bookshelves and towers — all in my home with my gear. I'm looking for speakers obtainable up to about $4k but could go up (or down) a bit if the right thing came along.

Basic facts: All speakers were run in at least 100 hours. Room is 27 x 14 x 6.5 ceilings. Powering with all QS tubes, 60w, NOS, tube R2R dac, and decent cables. No terrible reflection points; room not overly live or dampened. REL R 328 sub available but I did most listening without it.

Recent auditions, type:

Klipsch RP 600-M (budget singleton of the group)
Fritz Rev Carbon 7 mk II (bookshelf, 2 way, soft dome)
Focal 936 (tower, 3 way, inverted metal)
Martin Logan Motion 60s XTi (tower, 3 way, AMT)

Coming soon:

Salk SS 6M (bookshelf, 2 way, beryllium)
Dynaudio Evoke 30's (tower, 3 way, soft dome)

Let me speak just to the problems, rather than what was good about the speakers. So far, I've found the Klipsch, Focal, and especially the Martin Logans were all too bright — forward, aggressive, "turn it down" treble.

The ML's were the most impossible to tame and hardest to listen to on more tracks. (I did a lot of hanging of towels and other dampeners and other soft things to try to see if I could bring them to heel. I varied the recordings used. Changed cables/wires. No luck.)

The Focals were occasionally too bright; their bigger problem was a bit too much energy in my small listening space. They were better when I plugged their ports with socks.

I'm looking forward to how the next two speakers sound. The Dynaudio towers, I notice, are 10 inches shorter and half the weight of the other towers; not sure what that might mean, but it could just be right size for my space. I'm looking forward to seeing if the Salks bring more detail to the treble without also being too rolled off or harsh.

Hearing is very personal for physiological and taste reasons. However, if anyone has any thoughts about why I might be experiencing some of the phenomena I am (harsh treble, especially) based on my room or gear, etc., that might help me understand factors I'm not fully appreciating. Thanks.


hilde45
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,303 posts
 
My Mission cyrus 781 were supposedly the best speakers Mission created...

Before my room passive treatment and active controls they were good but i was not in love... But now they are superlatively good compare to 2 years ago before i implemented the rightful acoustical embeddings...I am in love...

We can put many good speakers in a bad room and we will never fall in love with any them...

We can put many less good speakers in a good room and we will fall in love with each of them...

Speakers+ controlled room + ears = ONE blissful state

The room is the speaker :)
I will gladly stole your words.... :)



I will add that almost all non treated and non controlled acoustical room are bad unbeknownst to us sometimes because we think so much strongly that hi-fi is linked to improved electronical engineering mainly....
b_limo's avatar
b_limo
2,290 posts
 
Hi Hilde45!  Good to see where you are at in your speaker journey. Thanks for keeping us updated.

The new Carrera BE’s use the same tweeter as the Salks you have coming.  They offer loads of detail without being too bright.  They’ll need to be burned in for quite awhile though to come to their full potential.  The Salks will go through some funky changes... too bright, too dull, not enough bass.  Remember, your burning in new drivers and new crossovers.

Have the Carbon 7’s been your Favorite this far?  There’s a pair of pre owned LS7R’s for sale.  You might ask Fritz how those compare to the Carbon 7’s soundwise.

TheDyn’s will have great bass and sound really pretty nice overall.  They are a bit dry for my tastes but they are pretty nice speakers.

My guess is that the Salks are going to do it for you.  I wish you had the chance to audition the Carrrras though. Withthe 7” Revelator and Fritz’s crossovers, I think it would have been an ideal match for your tubes.

I really do think though that you’re going to really like the Salks, with that paper midbass giving you a natural tone and the beryllium tweet giving you loads of detail, they should be the best sounding speakers out of what you have auditioned.  
The BE tweets sound quite different from the soft domes though so if you don’t prefer them, I’d go for the best soft domes you can.  That might be the Carbon 7’s, the LS7R’s or an esotar dynaudio tweeter, or something with a Seas Excel.
twoleftears's avatar
twoleftears
5,320 posts
 
Brighter tweeters can give the impression of relaying more of what's going on in the top end, but one really needs to let one's ears adjust to a soft dome.  Quality Scanspeak tweeters are really very revealing, but just not in the same way as metal 
elevick
2,638 posts
 
One thing I don't see is your listening position.  If you are trying to fill the entire room with sound you will have reflection problems.  I would be that if you try some nearfield listening that the sound will be much more palatable.  A pair of smaller speakers and you sitting 8-10 feet away could sound much less harsh.
Also, do you have a rug?  I'd go with as big as you can get.  My theater has about 7' ceilings running Coincident (which can be bright) with Mac amps.  My seating position is 2/3 the way back and a really nice rug with a huge bookshelf in the back of the room have tamed it all.
hilde45's avatar
hilde45 OP
5,261 posts
 
@auxinput
Appreciate your run down. It’s funny to think that the Salk’s tweeters have a " a slight upward tilt in the 22khz area." My hearing, I’d wager, doesn’t go above 14k at this point!

The Revels are interesting choices for trial. I have a good sub, so a pairing there might be interesting.

@mahgister I hear you about the room. I would not say this room is inherently bad but it is a factor. It’s an interesting chicken and egg problem -- how do you choose a speaker if the room isn’t tweaked vs. how do you tweak a room if you don’t have the speaker you’re tweaking it for? For me, the answer is that my room is good enough for speakers to sound pretty good in, and I’ve only got this room to work with. My hopes in this post are to relay what I’ve experienced with all those factors and hope that some generic issues (as mentioned above by auxinput) are likely to be present in a great variety of rooms, including my own.

@b_limo I asked Salk to burn the speakers in before sending. He ran them for 48 hours and I’ll probably run them pretty good for another 48 before really honing in.

The Dyns I’ve heard were pretty luscious sounding, and I’ve *never* heard them on an all tube system, not least one with mono blocks.

As for Be tweets, I’ve never heard them. Soft domes seems safe to me, but a little too safe. Let this middle aged guy drive a sports car to the grocery store and back! But seriously, I am seeking detail-without-harshness. That’s the target I hope to strike between the soft dome and ribbon/metal tweets I’ve heard.

@twoleftears — Good point. Some of what I’m listening for might rely on my own ability to attend properly to the speaker’s output. I have a scoresheet with all the important characteristics on it, so I will pay attention across the range of metrics (tonality, soundstage, dynamics, enjoyability, etc.) and will keep in mind that my stance in a particular situation (e.g. towards a soft-dome) needs to be appropriate.
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