Please recommend speakers
I’m just starting my audiophile journey and want to make sure I pair the right equipment before going too far down the rabbit hole. I am coming into this as a complete newbie. I listen pretty much to everything but mostly pop, classical and jazz in a fairly large-ish lower level living room (maybe 20 x 20 feet square) and speakers sitting on bookshelves. I know they should be on stands or floor-mounted, but that doesn’t really work for me right now space-wise. So far I have Jamo 803 bookshelf speakers with newly purchased SMSL DA-9 amp and matching SMSL SU-9 DAC (previously was using an old NAD D 3020 V1 integrated amp with direct connection from iPad to internal DAC). Now I stream directly from an old iPhone/iPad via a USB camera adapter to the DAC which has balanced connections to the DA-9 amp. I pretty much stream music exclusively (currently on free trials with Tidal and Amazon HD). No other sources. No library to speak of. No headphones. The Jamos sound great to me, but I feel like I need something better to pair with the mid-fi DAC and AMP. So I’m looking for upgrade the Jamo 803s which were purchased on sale for $130. Looking to spend up to maybe $800 for a pair. Recommendations? Thanks in advance!
Edit: Here's what I'm considering so far. KEF350, Polk R200s, Audio Monitor Bronze. Thoughts on pros and cons? Anything else?
Yes, Klipsch is another high efficiency speaker mfg. While looking up the ones you mentioned, I ran across these. Supposedly the are a discontinued model but are the same as the 625FA which sell for $599 apiece. They are towers if you have the room they should have a better freq range They are 8ohm & 97db sensitivity.
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Among other speakers, I’ve owned both the KEf LS50s and the Tekton M Lore (towers). I even had them in the same system for a bit and liked them both for different reasons. IMHO, your room is too big for the LS50s if you want to push any volume or play complex music and sit anywhere other than near field. I strongly advise you to get towers for that room size. M Lores won’t be the the last word in detail or refinement but they are fun to listen to and fit your budget. If you go used there are many other speakers would fit the bill too...Vandersteen 2c comes to mind. |
@artemus_5, great point. I didn’t realize we were using a small chip amp here. Depending upon the psu used, they are typically good for half their published output. A high sensitivity speaker is likely the better choice. Klipsch, Zu, et al. Edit, have personally heard a number of examples from both brands. Lean towards Zu, but some models can be too forward so demo for sure to see of you like them. |
