Speaker of My House…!


Hey Boys - (and gals if there are any here)

It’s time to usher in a new speaker. It needs to be nuanced and elegant. It needs to party but also be super fast and detailed. No muddy lows or shrieking highs. It needs to image like electrostatic speakers but with a large sweet spot. I don’t have room for Subs, so I need at least 25hz.

My new speakers are probably floor standers and they need to look beautiful.

My current Amp is an ARC 160s.

Source is Rossini Apex

My main listening room is about 18’ X 22’ with vaulted 12’ ceiling. My system also spends time in my home office which is small - 13’ X 14’ also with high vaulted ceilings and as many room treatments as I could fit.

I just sold my 18 month old Sonus Faber Serafino Traditions. I loved a lot about them. Probably still the prettiest speaker I’ve ever seen and at just under $20k new, pretty awesome sounding. They really ticked all the boxes in so many areas but they got a little breathless in my larger room. Mostly the bass got lost and less detailed.

So….

I’m considering the new SF Amati’s.

Joseph Audio Pearl Graphene

Wilson Sasha DAW (ugh - I know, but that sound..!)

So…. Let’s have it. Whatta you guys think I should consider…?

(Im not ready for Maggie’s just yet)

Thanks for your help..!

Joe

 

 

128x128jomonhifi

Good choice on adding subs. Even the lower end of the “price not an issue” stuff you are looking at all lacks bass. Yeah I might play down to 20hz with room gain but it does not mean it does it with ease and texture. 
 

I can’t recommend trying the JL Audio CR-1 crossover enough. The Rel hook up is 1980s tech…  to get subs to truly mesh well you need a high pass crossover. I would also argue subs work better with full range speakers. I think it’s a best to cross them over where the bass driver drops off and the port starts to pick up. So this would be 50-70hz for almost all ported speakers. 
 

I will never run a system without subs again (well not my main system) but I also would never run subs without a high pass. My system will let me run with and without the high pass so I have A/B tested it many times. With the crossover it sounds like one big awesome speaker. Without it, it sounds like a good speaker with a good sub…

@james633 - Interesting... Thanks for these notes. I can't wait to get all this stuff and start tinkering around...! Hopefully it all should start trickling in late next week. Back in 1998, I had a pair of Miller & Kriesel (sp?) satellites and two massive subs.... I'm sure the technology has come such a long way. Will keep you posted....

 

One of the nice things about adjustable bass is sometimes you think you want more so you just dial more in. Then in a few days you realize you had it right before lol. Bass has a profound effect on musical enjoyment and enjoyment for the system as a whole. It is the most important thing to get right. sometimes I have trouble telling which speaker has better mids or highs as they are often just different not better but I can tell in just a few seconds which system has better bass. 

the nice thing about a high pass is you can play with the crossover point.  you can technically put it anywhere you want (30-120db) and really let’s you dial in the sound power/hand off to the main speakers. Without one you have to come in real low as to not cause a hump and corresponding dip in the overlap between the sub and mains.  

 

A couple of times I’ve had a monitor and dual sub set up. First was with 3 different Omega speakers with Omega subs and second with Shelby+Kroll monitors with S+K subs. After many exhausting trials I came across the Dspeaker Anti Mode Dual Core which gave me the best bass overall. It sends out bass tones and fixes the bass nodes in your room. Dspeaker now has the X4 Anti Mode which is also an electronic crossover. Not sure if your budget but you’ll save yourself a lot of time and frustration.

https://www.underwoodhifi.com/products/dspeaker