What speakers for 10k?


Looking to buy the end of game speakers, currently I have Vienna Acoustics Mozart Grand. My amp is the Parasound a21 with the Parasound p5 pre amp, Marantz sa8001 sacd and the Marantz sr5001 avr, psa xs15se sub. My budget is 5 to 10k on main speaker upgrade.
jughead
Hey Jh,

Of the 40 days offered by WT you'll not need the remaining 39 days and 20 hrs.

The Mozarts would be destroyed tonally, harmonically and dynamically (especially by the GT SE's)... in every way.

The three areas that would be of concern to me with the Beethoven's also are the limited bandwidth (ultra sonics matter), lowish efficiency for a 4 ohm speaker (the higher the efficiency when driving a 4 ohm load the easier the amp works which produces a more relaxed, effortless sound... especially when pushed). Leading to the third issue with VA Beethoven's... that is common knowledge that when you push VA hard they crumble.

As I've said, great specs don't guarantee great sound but without great specs the potential isn't there.

GT's go out beyond 27K, efficiency @ 94db...

Also, anybody that tries to challenge Wavetouch Audio's INTEGRITY and credibility (zd542 "lol") is baseless...and meaningless to this or any other thread. Look at the "reviews" page on his website and be overwhelmed by the many grateful and satisfied customers. And when you're done there after many hours check his feedback on this website.
Haven't heard the Beethovens myself. But, the reasons I think you'll love the GT's (Gen. 2 or SE) are because the entire presentation is uncommonly uncompromised, i.e. there seems to be no significant gaps or holes within it. (My quickie review here). They are neutrally transparent and will pass on whatever your components are doing exceptionally well.

The 2 drivers are well matched in that the woofer's phase response is mild and smooth and it hands over to a tweeter's phase response that is quite literally "ruler flat" over the entire operating range of the tweeter (you can find the response graphs of the tweeter at Dayton Audio's website). And some listening time will reveal that the very minimalist crossovers and the Mihorns are, in all likelihood, doing very little indeed to interfere with that unusually good, combined phase response. That results in a strikingly stable, complete, unperturbed and perfectly symmetrical soundstage. Simply not the norm, IME. The Mihorns can also easily be used to create a rather vividly 3D central image as well. Excellent spatial qualities.

I won't get into the details about "how" right now, but the Mihorns tend to "speed up" the sound of everything upstream from them. By that I mean that I'm using some amps at the moment that don't exactly have "HiFi pedigree" written all over them, yet the subjective sensation of system speed is as though I'd spent much more coin on them than I did...I'm still running some experiments along those lines, but I may be able to draw a conclusion or two about how they manage that trick a little later on. If your components are already top notch in that regard, then the Mihorns possibly may not accelerate much beyond a certain point, but, that they do so at all, I've found to be rather unique, so far, IME. Maybe other horns are known to do this??

But, tonally, harmonically and texturally revealing?? Oh yeah!! In spades. And very dynamic.

Look at it this way. They are very small and not only easy to place in the room, but easy and inexpensive to return if you don't like...but, I'll bet you won't return, at all.

Oh, I'll continue to listen to other speakers whenever I get the chance, just out of curiosity, but, even though I'm using a good pair of subs with them that only helps to seal it for me, I already know these are the last speakers I'll ever need to buy, period.

Can't really speak directly to the Beethovens (After_hrs may well be right about them), but I'll throw in my recommendation for the GT's, along with him, without reservation!
I thought this thread was about spending $10K for speakers? Why are you even considering spending a fraction of that for what is mostly a sideways purchase? I have nothing against VA's. I think the VA's are a reasonable value for what they do... with the exception of their flagship model... which is very compelling to me. It has a high frequency extension out to 100K... now that's better... and it sells for $27000.00... and this quote was from a review of "The Music" that perfectly describes one aspect of my personal experience with the latest GT's "While working on a variety of projects and wandering around my listening room, I was continually and abruptly surprised by the many quick transients and vocal inflections that poured out from the system—even at low to medium volume levels. I could be sitting at my desk off to the side or sitting in my prime listening position—music quality was superb at both."

Also, I do understand why Ryan at Vapor doesn't offer a trial period. Even his smaller speakers are not lightweights. When an audiophile has a budget of $10K and thoroughly investigates the veracity of Wavetouch Audio and their grateful, elated customers, taking the generous 40 day Wavetouch offer becomes not only a no-brainer but will likely also become the next chapter in their audiophile journey.

Cheers
I own the Nimbus White following my review at Dagogo.com. Feel free to read the article and contact me with questions.

You can see how I addressed the current complaints about Vapor in the thread "Vapor Sound Audio/Tons of Value for $$$$"