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Looking for "realistic" speakers

I just had my pair of Cary Audio Silver Oak speakers get fried along with the rest of my Cary gear in some kind of power surge (sniff sniff). And absolutely loved the Silver Oaks because they just made everything sound authentic.

The instruments had the right timbre, scale, the balance was just right, and aside for perhaps a touch of richness had no character of their own. This made them sound great for any type of music.

I can't afford the $8K I spent in the day to replace so am looking for something closer to $2K-$3K max (used Ok). I'm looking less for something with super trick staging, imaging and some of the other high end niceties (though I wouldn't kick them out of bed).

More for a musical speaker that just makes the music musical and the presentation realistic sounding. That makes you forget you're listening to speakers/electronics and hearing the music the way it should sound.

Easy to say, I know.

My preamps and amps are solid state Cary stuff that will be replaced by insurance though sadly the Silver Oaks are no longer made.

Any ideas?
larrybou
rsimms
150 posts
 
I have heard most of the speakers out there and the only speaker that I have ever heard that could fool me into thinking I was listening to live acoustic instruments was a Philharmonic speaker. The Philharmonic 3 speaker is from 3.3k which is close to your price range. The 50k Vandersteen 7 did come close too and is, of course, a better speaker. There is not much music that is recorded well enough to feed them to that level though. You will need to be able to have the back of the speaker at least a couple feet from the wall and I am not sure the styling is what you might prefer. Also, they won’t make the music sound better than it is. They are open in the back of the midrange to allow a natural sounding ambient bloom and image.

[URL=http://philharmonicaudio.com/index.html]philharmonic[/URL]

Bob
xti16
1,525 posts
 
May want to consider some pre owned Dynaudios. 2 that come to mind and for sale here on Agon is the Contour 3.4 and Focus 340. The Focus will be a bit more forward than the Contour 3.4's.

That said I used to own the C1's and C1 signatures and found them to have a huge sound stage due to their high dispersion tweeters. No need for very much toe in.

Best of luck
mechans
3,048 posts
 
Get a Cary tube amp set up and your speakers will sound more life like.... but that's a whole new can of worms, sorry couldn't resist.
larrybou OP
130 posts
 
Trust me - if the insurance replaces the amp I'll definitely go Tube with the Cary stuff. That said their solid state amps do have a tube like sound along with excellent slam and dynamics.
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