I don't believe you mentioned the kind of speakers you presently have. Have you heard a pair of SALK speakers? I heard a pair at the RMAF in Denver a couple years ago, and the impressed me the most at the show. They played everything well. Jim Salk sells direct in order to user higher end drivers and cabinet build so he doesn't have to discount his speakers to the dealers. However, the problem is having the ability to hear them other than listen to them at audio shows because he manufactures his speakers in MIchigan. You will love this guy.
What speaker – under $10k – has the best timbre and tonal qualities?
Several years ago, a prominent reviewer had this to say as he was praising the natural and life-like tonal qualities of a particular speaker:
It’s [speakers] like these that make me question the priorities of audiophiles who relegate accuracy of timbre to secondary status. How are the richness and color of instruments, voices, ensembles, and textures to be reproduced in all their infinite variety and beauty if a loudspeaker has less than accurate reproduction of timbre? What do dynamics, imaging, detail, transparency, and the like matter if voices and instruments don’t sound like themselves?
I’ve come the same realization, late in the game. I recently made a lateral move from one of the most popular of recent speaker models to a different speaker, because it sounded so much more natural and realistic in timbre. I sacrificed a touch of image precision in doing so, but it has been well worth it. The sound is so much more engaging. It’s like going from a high-resolution black and white photograph – which is very detailed and impressive – to a color version of the same photo, but with slightly less resolution. The color version offers so much more in terms of realism.
So I’m now contemplating the purchase of what I hope will be my last speakers, with the objective of realistic, natural, and rich (but not artificially warm) tone being the primary attribute.
What speakers, under $10k, would you recommend? (I’m driving them with a PrimaLuna Prologue Premium)
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I own Liberty Audio X-VOX Loudspeakers and love them! The Spatial's are getting a lot of attention as well... Wig Loudspeaker Break in revealed - YouTube Hi-fi Stereo | 11 Stereo |
The problem is - there is a relationship between many of the common audiophile descriptors and timbre. It's is one of the most difficult to portray accurately without a fairly high level of detail retrieval, driver to driver cohesiveness, dynamics, etc. on top of that, you need a quite high quality system to allow a speaker to portray timbre accurately. And, of course excellent recordings. That said, there are very few speakers (with associated gear and music) that I've heard that capture the tonal accuracy (or timbre) of instruments well. And <$10K, even fewer. IME only the largest of Wilsons are capable and Magico M series most certainly does. Another is Vivid Giyas (I bought them) and Vandersteen 7s. At <$10K new, the Magico A3 is good, the smaller Vivids and possibly the smaller Vandys albeit I haven't heard Richard's newer models. |
+1 for GR Research - the NX-Extremes are excellent on their own, but paired with a set of servo subwoofers (2) I think would be virtually unbeatable at the price (and probably any price). Danny is a great guy and is very responsive to email, etc. His YT channel is definitely great if you're interested in the science of it, and he actually takes speakers people send him, measures them, gives feedback on their strengths and weaknesses and then determines if an upgrade path is achievable. Often times, he redesign the crossover or suggests filtering to reduce baffle reflection, etc. |
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