After the thrill is gone

agree on the room being the hard part with dynamic cones and boxes.

cones and boxes can have all their advantages as far as authentic full range, complete top to bottom seamlessness and cohesion, and without non musical characteristics. horns and planers have attributes and flaws too.....but are less room sensitive with their dispersion patterns.

i’m all in with my room, so my dynamic cones and boxe speakers are able to come close to matching horns at dynamics, and planers at being coherent and transparent, but also retain the advantages of dynamic cones. but it’s a huge commitment for my room.

where do you want to compromise? what are your priorities?

are you looking for the quick hit thrill of change for changes sake? do you just want a different set of challenges?

if you want it all, then it’s dynamic cones and all in on the room.

and i can tell you that the thrill is not in any way gone......in the least.

So I just wonder what your experiences have been once the initial thrill is gone? (Especially if you moved from boxes to planars)

for me, i am very very happy with my maggies

when the thrill of a change is gone, i swap, as i keep multiple speakers around - i will change in my big spendors or harbeths for a different window onto the music

68 and retired....End game system is here for me.

Big tube power ...... Maggie 3.7s cover the vocals.

Lower $ system (under 10K) still produces Big Thrills.

I started with acoustic suspension box speakers, went to various open baffle for at least fifteen years, to ported acoustic suspension, finally to horns.

Once I heard open baffle, box speakers always had boxy, or closed in sound for me, the move back to box for short period of time was never fully satisfying, heard my present horns, can't imagine going back to either previous designs.

I don’t ever remember being disappointed after a time with speakers. They typically sound good when I get them, then sound better as I work to optimize them. Maybe that is a personal thing.

I was initially enamored with planar speakers and over 30 years had three different pairs. But I went through a period of intense learning, listening to acoustic instruments and symphonies every other week and concluded the ethereal sound I was chasing made some stuff sound better but compromised the sound of most stuff (this is the classic chasing details and slam). So, I reviewed all the auditioning I had done and realized one sound stood out… really stood out as natural and coherent top to bottom.

They were Sonus Faber speakers. So, I bought a used pair as a test. Within a couple weeks I ordered a brand new pair of Olympica 3 (dynamic floorstanders)… from the first shipment from Italy. That changed everything. I started upgrading the electronics in preparation for retirement.

I have been fortunate and was able to upgrade again in retirement to Sonus Faber Amati Traditional and all Audio Research Reference electronics and ditched the subwoofers. This system is far better than any of my previous systems by a long ways and makes all music sound better and all recordings. It is musical above all… yet all the details are there, they are just not pushed to the forefront. The soundstage is wide and deep… but mostly it is really hard to tear myself away from it… after two or three hours… I don’t want to go.

When I was working 45 minutes or an hour was a lot of time to spare to listen. At first when I retired, I would listen for 45 minutes and get bored and go do something else. My system was really good…. detailed, great slam… but a bit dry (only obvious in retrospect). I didn’t realize it but I was listening mostly to the system, not the music. This was with Olympica speakers (not the problem), but Sim Moon 650D with 820 power supply ($18K together), and a Pass 350 amp… all good stuff. But these two were both too detailed with a lack of midrange bloom and musicality. When I swapped out the amp, and DAC with Audio Research equipment the character completely shifted and became musical and immersive.

Each system has a tipping point. Also, everyone has different tastes. But for me, what put me on the right path was going back to dynamic speakers and the tubes all around.

I didn’t realize I was going to write a book. But I don’t think I had fully thought this through. But the first step was the speakers which made the sound I wanted  possible, then it was adding much better tube components that captured the musical essence where I had dry - detailed components.