Do my ears deceive me??
The money is in the bank, thinking of upgrading speakers, but everything I demo is no better or worse than what I have. Willing to spend up to $6,000. Upgraditis?? My main system is Mcintosh MX 134 that I bought in 2003, with a pair of Focal 836v's and a Parasound 5250 (250w/channel) amp I bought around 2012. I either blew the tweeters or crossover on my 836's, so they are in for repair. Since I've owned them for 10 years, I was considering new speakers. The blades are way more than I would spend, but I also demoed the Kef R11s, Martin Logan xtf 200's, Mcintosh XR 100s, and B&W 703 S3.
None of them sounded better than what I'm hearing right now from my BP 2006s. Would I really need to demo them in my room to make a fair comparison?? Or are speakers just not much better than they were 20 years ago? I know I love detail, and tend to lean towards aluminum tweeters. I pretty much only listen to classic rock and roll. Of all I demoed, I really like the B&W 706s. They sounded much brighter/cleaner than the others. But they had the reciever set up so I couldn't adjust the treble/bass. I love a V equalizer curve, and bump up the bass and treble a bit on my home/car systems. Maybe I just have the good luck of prefering cheaper speakers.
@OP - Keep your Focals when repaired because they have the kind of frequency response you say you like. As you have found from auditioning, current B&W's are similar. It is highly unlikely that you would respond positively to Harbeths or any other "BBC" type speaker. There are lots of other ways you could spend 6K to improve your system - for example, that puts you in the ballpark to replace your preamp with something like a Pass XP-12. |
Why is the lead question about whether there is something "better"? But how about just going for just as pleasing but also "different"? Over the course of life, virtually no one vacations at the same place, goes to the same kind of restaurant, drives the same car, etc. Get a second pair of speakers you like and either rotate them with the first or just replace the first for a while. Variety is the spice of life, and the notion that one can only seek out "better" is myopic.
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What you’re doing by boosting the Bass, is clipping* your amplifier. *That’s what took out your tweeters and/or crossover. If your speakers and amp can’t keep up with your tastes in reproduction: just buy a powered subwoofer for your home listening room, reduce the curve/boost on the system's low freqs and remove that load from your main amp(s). |
I just noticed GoldenEar Triton 1R are on sale all over down from 4K each down to 2.5k. All the bass you would likely ever need and GoldenEar IMO does a nice job making the speaker sound of a whole. In other words the transition from the powered section is smooth to the mids and highs. They already have a small lift in the upper treble and you can dial the bass in to your preference. I would jump on those. |
+1 for what @rodman99999 just said. |
