Best Sounding L/R Speakers for DVD/BD Movie Sound? > $4K/pair


If you're a vintage DVD/BD movie collector like me you're likely to have been less than thrilled by the audio quality of lots of discs in your collection. I'm especially talking about movies from the mid 1940s through the mid 90s. Of course, there are a small handful of blessed exceptions, all BD editions: “Double Indemnity” (1944); “Whirlpool” (1949); "North by Northwest" (1959); “Collector” (1965); "PJ" (1967); “Colossus: The Forbin Project” (1972); “Conversation” (1974); “Love & Death on Long Island” (1996)
 

But if you do own such titles produced between those five decades don't many sound compressed-and possibly with a somewhat noisy high end, if there is much HF response at all? Any other aspects about the sound which you often find troublesome?

So, if you have spent at least $4K or more on L/R speakers-and maybe also $1K or so on a center speaker-then on a scale of 3 to 10, with 10 being most satisfied, how do most of your oldest or most of your DVD and BD movie titles sound to you?

Please share make/model of those speakers.

ajant

NO speaker is going to make poor post production sound good.Some will cover up bad mixing but at the expense of losing detail..You risk really hating these movies even more with a better system as it will really highlight bad post production..

You risk really hating these movies even more with a better system as it will really highlight bad post production..

No doubt, especially with horn speakers using beryllium drivers, like these I’ll be building to play my good music recordings; see posts 15266, 15276

https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/beyond-the-ariel.100392/page-764

That’s why I’m hoping to find tower or other floor standing speakers using perhaps soft dome tweeters (of what materials?) and perhaps midrange drivers with some kind of plastic/paper amalgam that will deliver realistic sound but which are still far  from highly resolving. The other alternative I thought of was to use Pierre’s speakers with EQ like these. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UADPultecColl--universal-audio-uad-pultec-passive-eq-plug-in-collection

or some other kind of EQ plug in. All of my sources are digital and I play DVDs and BDS on my PC’s BD drive and JRiver. Please share thoughts. .

 

I’m not really sure of the question. Yes, really old movies do not have not very good sounding sound tracks. The restoration on North by Northwest was phenomenal, both video and audio, the reason it sounds good.

 

Our home theater has B&W 805 for all five channels. They are great speakers and very faithfully reproduce whatever is on the disk. The center is the exact same speaker… except constructed as a center. As it should be since 85% of the sound in HT comes from the center. It is not just the speakers, top notch electronics are needed to get the best sound.

 

i have been noticing over the years more and more the rear channels carry real bass and volume and not just bullet sounds any more.

They are great speakers and very faithfully reproduce whatever is on the disk.

Okay, but as I pointed out movie audio quality like the BD Edition of North by Northwest may comprise perhaps only 25% of my collection. So such speakers might disappoint more than please.