Help with new speakers

ACI Jaguars, simply superb. Combine with a pair of their Titan II LE subs and you're still under budget. Listen for yourself, I think you'll love them.

Greetings Lmathias,

I tip my virtual hat to you for not putting your love of music on hold because of your hearing loss.

My step-father is a hard-core opera fan who spent twentysomething years flying helicopters for the Marine Corps, so his hearing is pretty well hammered, especially above 4 kilohertz. What I have found especially helpful to him is speakers that have a high signal-to-noise ratio.

The kind of noise you don't want is boxy colorations such as internal resonances and panel resonances. Also, you'd do best with a relatively high ratio of direct to reflected sound, because reflections and room resonances are detrimental to clarity. Further, you want drivers that are inherently articulate and free from resonances and colorations.

This would lead you toward fairly directional speakers that do not use traditional boxes. Several possibilities come to mind:

I'd suggest the InnerSound Eros; Maggie 3.6's; any Audio Artistry speakers; Gradient Revolutions; and Quad 63's, 988's, or (my favorite) original ESL's. You could probably stack a pair of original Quads and stay within your budget.

I'm a dealer for the Gradients, own a pair of original Quads, and am familiar with most of the others.

Just for your information, the man who designs and builds arguably the best electrostats made, Roger West of Sound Lab, is completely deaf in one ear and uses a hearing aid (and cupped hand) for the other.

Best of luck to you!

Before purchasing any speaker, please try to listen to the Revel M-20s. For $1,000 each, they are quite a bargin--and they leave you with money left over to purchase a subwoofer, like the Revel B-15 which mates extremely well with them.

I thought I was the only military pilot / audio nut in the world! I fly AH-64 Apache attack helicopters for the Army, hence the name "gunbunny".

So far, my hearing is still pretty good. Of course, I haven't done it for 20+ years.