Need suggestions on bookshelf speaker upgrades

3/25 Ctsooner:

When you said your speaker wasn't set up correctly, I agreed that you were probably correct.

I didn’t say "my speaker is not set up correctly?" It’s your words on 3/21.

Milhorn you've already made a fool of yourself in your rude responses to my posts. You can try and twist words as much as you want or quote or do whatever you want, but in the end, you looked very foolish in your posts in this thread. You really should have stopped while you were behind. This irony is that you lost the chance at a few sales based on some emails people sent me offline about how they'd never buy from a start up company who's owner posted such rude and uncalled for comments. I'm very happy that one of the posters like your speaker after it's been broken in for a very long time.

Since you call your speaker the most beautiful sounding speaker in the world, you should send me a pair and I'll get a few of the posters from this board from NY/NJ/Ct area come to a store and we'll do a shoot out with not just Vandersteen, as I posted about, but also 4 or so other brands. Since everyone has different ears and likes different speakers we can see if everyone agrees in what you are selling. Want to put your money where your mouth is? Seriously, you can be there too obviously and we could even set it all up with a black sheet etc... so it's done properly. Now THAT would be something that folks would love to do I bet.

Any takers? You may just make a believer out of me and some others. If not, give it up already please.

Staying on topic NY, which speakers are on your short list so far and why? Keep in mind your system and especially your room. As anyone realizes the room is HUGE no matter what one or two folks may say as there are always going to be reflections and scattering of sound that will hit your ear at different times that can smear and do other nasty things that will ruin your sound. Bass especially.

Since imaging is a top priority of NYaudio98, let me toss out a few comments.

Good imaging would include two attributes in abundance: Precise localization of sound sources, and a sense of immersion in the acoustic space of the recording.

To a certain extent, these two attributes trade off against one another. The more powerful the in-room reverberant field, in general the greater the sense of envelopment and immersion, but at the expense of precise sound source localization.

If we can introduce a fairly long delay between the first-arrival sound and the onset of a powerful, diffuse reverberant field, we can come very close to "best of both worlds". In a big room this is something a good dipole can do well, provided it's out from the wall far enough to get about 10 milliseconds' worth of path-length-induced time delay on the backwave. That calls for about five feet of "breathing room" behind the speakers. Obviously this isn't practical in a small room, and we have to get creative.

If any of you are going to be at T.H.E. Show in Newport Beach in a few days, stop by Hilton Room 920 (Electra-Fidelity) and see what is arguably the current state-of-the-art in small-room-friendly speakers that can deliver that sense of immersion and envelopment along with good sound source localization.

If the goal is approximating the illusion of a live concert, this sense of immersion is arguably a key factor. Another is good dynamic contrast. Another is that unmistakable aroma of weed. Any two out of these three should get you most of the way there.

Duke
dealer/manufacturer

Interesting speakers Duke. Let us know if you are ever near CT/NY/NJ. I'd love to give them a listen. Also like to know about new products. I don't think he's really looking as he's had this thread for a long time. If it was price and imaging/soundstaging etc... he would have probably found his speakers already. It's become an interesting (in more ways than one, lol) and fun thread reading about what speakers posters have or want to have. Since audio is all personal and this area of product is so competitive, there are so many options.

There seem to be a ton of new companies starting up, which I find interesting since higher end, 2channel audio is shrinking. Or is it? I am learning a ton by selling off my vintage systems. Folks playing in this level (>1k per pair) want speakers that disappear OR speakers that get the mids right. There are too many trade offs for the most part. I find it's been easier to sell my Proac Studio monitors than it has been trying to sell off my Super Towers. The prices are within a few hundred and the sound of the Towers gives legit bass to 30k in a good room. That's rare and it still disappears. It's also tipped up a spec on the top end if you don't use the right components (like many speakers in this range as it sells).

Just stating what I've run across as it's pretty interesting. I offered NY to go over to Audio Connections in NJ to even listen to the Proac's buy he never got back to me on it.

Lastly, what is the price range of your 'house speakers'? When you voiced them, what electronics and cables did you use? Thanks.

Hi Ctsooner,

Thanks for your kind words.

I don't want to wax too commercial here, but since you asked, I have models ranging from 2.7 grand to 10 grand. I have just started selling my most advanced models (not yet on my website) through a dealer network, but don't have any dealers in the Northeast yet.

You mentioned that you've seen a lot of new companies recently, and I presume you mean speaker companies. Imo that's the part of the signal chain where there's the most room for refinement, innovation, and the outright pushing of boundaries. So a lot of creative minds are drawn to speaker design. I've never met a fellow speaker designer who wasn't a kindred spirit, regardless of whether we were direct competitors or working totally different areas of the market.

As for electronics and cables, well I see amp + speaker + room as "a system within a system". Since the speaker is in the middle, I try to make mine compatible with a fairly wide range of amps (bang-for-buck solid state to Atma-Sphere OTL amps), and adaptable to a fairly wide range of room acoustic situations (some models moreso than others). Amplifier compatibility involves keeping the impedance curve benign and keeping the efficiency fairly high... and a side effect of that approach is, the demands on the speaker cable are a lot less. So I am far from being up to date on speaker cable developments.

Duke