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(Floor) Standing against the wall 2018

The problem with Shahinian from Arc upwards is the passive radiator behind, and Obelisks the radiator plus rear firing drivers. From my experience however, even Compass like a bit of room allround to sound their best.
 
Hello, JTC. Like you I am a long-time ESL57 user and have recently come to the sorry decision that I need to find something else. In my case it is because I no longer have a room big enough to position them well without them taking over the space. They are simply wonderful speakers, but I'm not willing to make my living room into a shrine to hi-fi for their sake. So I have been looking for something else that will take up significantly less space, can be positioned without making the room look stupid and still deliver a performance I can really enjoy. I have gone in a different direction to the way you appear to be thinking - Shahinians and Larsens are still big old speakers - and opted for tiny BBC monitors. I bought the pair of Chartwell LS3/5s advertised on here by member Athos, and I have to say I am absolutely delighted. Obviously, they are dead easy to position - sealed boxes so they can stand out in clear space a couple of feet away from the wall at the back and they still look very discreet - and my word, what a wonderful sound! You say you like things other than ESLs, and it is true that these are quite different. But there is so much about them to enjoy. They give away virtually nothing to ESLs in terms of midrange transparency, they have very acceptable bass extension (but that isn't going to be a priority if you liked ESLs anyway) and the imaging is, in my view at any rate, the best of any loudspeaker I have heard and noticeably better than ESLs. I would say they are slightly less "forward" than ESLs, so perhaps a little bit more of a relaxed sound, but I don't find that to be an issue at all.

It could be that this is a direction that doesn't interest you at all, but it has really worked for me, so worth a thought!
ML
p.s. If you find that for you the solution really has to involve moving the speakers back against the wall, Audio Note Es and Js cope with that very well, plus very efficient and love valve amps.
 
JTC said:
I need to see if I do. Like I said, I tried once before, but a long time ago. Different time, different everything really. I keep wondering about the Obelisks, as they look cool, I’ve never heard anyone say anything bad about them, and they have castors, which means I can wheel them about and the placement thing becomes less of an issue.

I am guessing that they’re quite a change from ESLs though!
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One thing to bear in mind with the Obelisks is that they need beefy amplification for them to come alive. I have often read on pfm that some prefer the Arcs as they 'sound better'. They don't but what they mean is that with the amps they have they sound better. Its like driving an old mini on 3 star petrol and then buying a flashy sports car and run that on 3 star - "that sports car is rubbish as it misfires and has no power and the mini drives so much better".

Some also believe that Naim amps are good with the Obs but the 250 and 135s that I then had upgraded couldn't drive them properly and sounded nowhere near their capabilities. I haven't tried the NAP300 or above so can't comment on those amps but my gut feel is that you can get better for less money.

The castors are good. My Obs sit against the wall and I just pull 'em out for a listen. Placement is unimportant and they sound good anywhere in the room and you do not have to sit centre stage with your head in a vice. Rather like at a live venue the sound changes as you move around the room.

Cheers,

DV
 
Have you thought about getting a pair of sealed cabinet floorstanders and EQ'ing the sub-300hz range?

Perhaps some ATCs would do the trick.
 
I use Spendor SA1's about 10cm from the rear and side walls in an alcove to good effect.I would be tempted to try the new Kerr Acoustic K300 which is a transmission line studio monitor with ribbon tweeter designed to go hard up against a rear wall.These are much larger than the LS3/5a sized Spendors however.
I use Quad 24 pre and 80 II amps.
 
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