Dear Al and company,
First, let me thank al of you for sharing your time, knowledge and insight with me. Now, let me explain how I arrived at this question. I was at a stereo store not even looking for speakers, and I heard the new Sonus Faber Olympica's and I was blown away. The best description I can give is "very warm." I felt like I was swimming in the music...I wanted to grab the first (decent looking) woman I saw and dance with her. I then listened to three other sets of speakers just to make sure it wasn't the effect of their listening room, and the others speakers did not come close to the SF Olympica's. I can't really afford the Olympica's right now, so I was hoping the Cremona M's would be close to the Olympica's.
Now, if I could say a few words about my listening. I love music, and listening to music is one of my favorite activities. However, I am not as concerned with the technical aspects of music reproduction as some are. What I mean is that I recognize that many people are fascinated by the never-ending technical pursuit of brilliant engineers who endeavor to design and created better equipment. And I have witnessed golden-eared experts listen to equipment, and they sometimes listen to music, critically, in a way that seems to prevent them from enjoying the music. Missing the for the forest for the trees. While that is important, I just want to hear the music, and I want it to sound good. For example, there used to be these "magic-eye" poster that initially looked like a bunch of dots, but if you relaxed a certain muscle in your eyes, an image would appear. I just want equipment good enough to allow the image to appear, in other words, for me to melt away into the music.
All this being said, I do believe good equipment makes a big difference in enjoyment. For example, when I upgraded to a clearaudio performance turntable, it was like switching from normal TV to HD. Everything sounded a lot better. And I remember when I went form my old Klipsch Heresy's to the Genesis G7's (which I no longer have), certain songs sounded completely different (and better). I.e. Copland's fanfare for the common man became so music more dramatic and powerful (and I actually liked it now). So I am far from a ludite regarding equipment. My only point is that the finer intricacies like phase angle drop off, etc.;-- the more technical aspects of a amp's or speaker's performance--might be very recognizable to guru's like Almarg, but might not be noticed by me.
Perhaps this will modify your speaker recommendations. Thanks again for everyone's help.
First, let me thank al of you for sharing your time, knowledge and insight with me. Now, let me explain how I arrived at this question. I was at a stereo store not even looking for speakers, and I heard the new Sonus Faber Olympica's and I was blown away. The best description I can give is "very warm." I felt like I was swimming in the music...I wanted to grab the first (decent looking) woman I saw and dance with her. I then listened to three other sets of speakers just to make sure it wasn't the effect of their listening room, and the others speakers did not come close to the SF Olympica's. I can't really afford the Olympica's right now, so I was hoping the Cremona M's would be close to the Olympica's.
Now, if I could say a few words about my listening. I love music, and listening to music is one of my favorite activities. However, I am not as concerned with the technical aspects of music reproduction as some are. What I mean is that I recognize that many people are fascinated by the never-ending technical pursuit of brilliant engineers who endeavor to design and created better equipment. And I have witnessed golden-eared experts listen to equipment, and they sometimes listen to music, critically, in a way that seems to prevent them from enjoying the music. Missing the for the forest for the trees. While that is important, I just want to hear the music, and I want it to sound good. For example, there used to be these "magic-eye" poster that initially looked like a bunch of dots, but if you relaxed a certain muscle in your eyes, an image would appear. I just want equipment good enough to allow the image to appear, in other words, for me to melt away into the music.
All this being said, I do believe good equipment makes a big difference in enjoyment. For example, when I upgraded to a clearaudio performance turntable, it was like switching from normal TV to HD. Everything sounded a lot better. And I remember when I went form my old Klipsch Heresy's to the Genesis G7's (which I no longer have), certain songs sounded completely different (and better). I.e. Copland's fanfare for the common man became so music more dramatic and powerful (and I actually liked it now). So I am far from a ludite regarding equipment. My only point is that the finer intricacies like phase angle drop off, etc.;-- the more technical aspects of a amp's or speaker's performance--might be very recognizable to guru's like Almarg, but might not be noticed by me.
Perhaps this will modify your speaker recommendations. Thanks again for everyone's help.