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.
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. |
I'm still waiting on the verdict for my Focals. The Parasound puts out 250w/channel. I've listened at loud volumes millions of times, and don't think I was pushing them any harder than I did in the past. But at the end of May something gave out. So I figured it must be due to age, as they are about 13 years old. I forgot to mention, but I do have a Klipsch SW-12 subwoofer in the system that I've owned since 1993. And it still works and thumps perfectly. But I don't use it every day either. I did run the 836's as Large, so they were getting the full audio spectrum. I probably only turn the sub on once or twice a week, if I'm listening really loud. Buy 80% of the time it's off as the speakers have adequate bass. I probably just need to keep it dialed back a bit. |
