Cav
pfm Member
I may need to live with some speakers that are good at low volume for a while, due to an ear problem.
Active speakers do that.
I may need to live with some speakers that are good at low volume for a while, due to an ear problem.
Like you, I thought the new SF Olympicas were excellent. Too much of an investment for me ATM though, as my wife has decided she wants to move house. How about a pair of ex-dem SF Cremona Auditor Ms? The SF dealers are letting their demo models go now that production is being wound up.
Active speakers do that.
ATC definitely do not excel at low volumes. Nor sadly to Proacs.
Of the speakers I have heard and lived with, Tannoy DC's sounded far better to my ears at low volumes as of course do Quads. The Merlin TSM was also an impressive performer when partnered with the right amplifier.
Most studio monitors are designed to preserve timbre from around 85db upwards so the truth is there are better options.
If you can pull the speakers well into the room and listen more in the nearfield that would helps substantially with whatever you choose.
This was just my thinking and I went to hear some Cremona Auditor Ms a week or two ago. I liked them very much in some ways, but I had some issues. Saxophones, but not voices, seemed strangely recessed. Due to a lost demo cd, I only had one Coltrane recording with me and it wasn't right. Later, when I tried the Olympica II, almost as an afterthought, the saxophone was back in the right place. But there were other fundamental changes. Where I had been reaching for the volume and adjusting during dynamic passages with the Cremona Ms, the Olympicas just seemed to track the dynamics without being at all pushy. Perhaps they were just a better size for the room, but I think it's more likely that they have a very clever crossover design and supreme driver integration.
I listened to a lot of soprano/piano recordings on the Olympicas - mainly Debussy and Faure, and I found them so completely absorbing. Yet at the same time I played a minimal techno mix by Robert Hood and they nailed it. This was not what I was expecting at all from SF, but they got the brutality of the 909 kick drum. I think that's quite an achievement; for a speaker to do French art song and minimal techno equally well. However I would need to hear them more extensively with jazz. I wouldn't say they were a vividly coloured speaker for this audition (and I mean that as a virtue), but other amps might bring this out a bit more. I heard them at O' Briens with a rather impressive Copland integrated (405?) that used a quad of KT88's, I seem to remember.
The trouble is that I have been corrupted by the forums and find myself incapable of buying new, even if I were to raise the money.
Bit of a generalisation that, have you heard 25s or 25s driven by decent active pre?
=Mike Reed;2137316
As you're firing across the room, ported (esp. rear ported) speakers are a compromise if close to a wall; likewise electrostatics and hybrids.
How about horns, which I've not seen mentioned. High efficiency; don't have to be massive; positioning close to walls; don't need powerful amplification. I remember being knocked out by Impulse H6s a couple of decades ago; they were very dynamic indeed for their relatively diminutive size.
At the risk of going earnestly back on topic, the beautiful looking Devore Orangutans look a little bit like ANEs.
So where are the Audio Note mafia, then?
I'm firing down the room from the short wall, so ported speakers aren't really a problem. I can use them fairly far into the room because it's a dedicated listening room.
I had horns, and they are amazing, but now they are in Tony's TV room!
Here (Kondo) How may I help?
Well they do when I'm eating , maybe we have different levels of quite!