My listening room is a smallish bedroom and I cannot place floor standing speakers properly distanced from room boundaries. I wanted full range, or close to it, so utilize a small sub that is very solid down to the low 30s. I use standmounts on the record/equipment cabinet. I tried several small speakers from Elac, BA Monitor Audio, etc. I am sensitive to cabinet resonance and needed something with as little resonance as possible. I finally settled on a pristine pair of ADS L200 Cs. Sealed cabinet and solid as rocks. By a good margin the most articulate, and best soundstage I experienced. I know this set up won't play as loud as bigger speakers, but it is more than adequate. I never exceed 50% volume even when blasting Rock or EDM.
smaller speakers for critical listening?
I'm curious whether folks out here think that standmount speakers can reward "critical listening."
I know that may be a ridiculous question; of course one can sit down with Radio Shack speakers and engage in serious listening, and of course the experience is subjective for all of us. I'm actually asking for subjective responses here. If your goal is a system for critical listening, do you think smaller speakers can do the trick or do you need the bigger soundstage and depth that can come with floor-standing, planar, or electrostatic speakers?
I'm not asking which is *better* in a given speaker line, the small ones or the big ones, and I'm not thinking about $50k Wilson-Benesch Endeavours or the like. Before the pandemic I auditioned some highly enjoyable standmount speakers in the $5k-$10k range. However, listening for an hour in a store, I couldn't tell whether they crossed the threshold from "terrific sound for a small speaker" to pull-up-a-chair-and-tune-out-the-world bliss.
As you can probably tell, I'm struggling with my room; it's very hard to place big speakers in it. Otherwise I'd buy Maggies or Vandersteens or JA Perspectives, etc, and be happy. And, to repeat, I know that the threshold for critical-listening speakers is subjective. I'm asking for opinions and experiences!
I know that may be a ridiculous question; of course one can sit down with Radio Shack speakers and engage in serious listening, and of course the experience is subjective for all of us. I'm actually asking for subjective responses here. If your goal is a system for critical listening, do you think smaller speakers can do the trick or do you need the bigger soundstage and depth that can come with floor-standing, planar, or electrostatic speakers?
I'm not asking which is *better* in a given speaker line, the small ones or the big ones, and I'm not thinking about $50k Wilson-Benesch Endeavours or the like. Before the pandemic I auditioned some highly enjoyable standmount speakers in the $5k-$10k range. However, listening for an hour in a store, I couldn't tell whether they crossed the threshold from "terrific sound for a small speaker" to pull-up-a-chair-and-tune-out-the-world bliss.
As you can probably tell, I'm struggling with my room; it's very hard to place big speakers in it. Otherwise I'd buy Maggies or Vandersteens or JA Perspectives, etc, and be happy. And, to repeat, I know that the threshold for critical-listening speakers is subjective. I'm asking for opinions and experiences!
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- 99 posts total
- 99 posts total