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System Pics 2015

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AndrewN said:
Hi Samuel & Jon

The room is 18ft x 18ft excluding the alcove. Plasterboard walls, concrete floor the square dimensions don't bode well. I listen "near field" to reduce the impact of the room on what I hear and this seems to work well. I am also conscious that I need to show a degree of respect to my neighbours, this is a flat after all so I can't generate masses of bass energy without potentially causing upset.

I've used many speakers over the years, favourites being Quad ELS57s and more recently Spendor S100s. Immediately prior to the Grahams I had some Falcon LS3/5as and Harbeth P3ESRs, also nice but the bigger boxes do give more. While I briefly flirted with Tannoy Turnberrys (wonderful stereo and mids, I found the highs harsh and the bass loose) I keep returning to BBC derived designs because they just sound "right". Not amazing... not impressive... but right.

It would be great to return to Quads, Harbeth M40.1s would be lovely as would the big Graham LS5/8s. I don't know them well but no doubt my system would do great things with big Wilsons other exotica too. However, the Graham LS5/9s do work very well at mid and lower volume levels, they work well in the near field and don't overwhelm the room. They are great with vocals suiting the Sinatra / Julie London / Tony Bennett stuff I enjoy.

At the end of the day they might not be the best speakers in the world, but they probably he best for me given the various compromises I face. The fact that they don't cost Wilson money meant that I could afford a very serious phono stage.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards



Andrew
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Hi Andrew,
Thanks very much for your objective opinion of the Graham Audio LS5/9s.

Having just taken delivery of a pair of LS5/9s yesterday my initial impression of them is very much in line with yours. I have also been down the Harbeth/Spendor road in the past so I suppose I qualify as a member of the 'pipe and slippers' brigade As you rightly point out everything is a compromise to some extent and the 5/9s are certainly not the best or most expensive speaker out there by any means, neither do they immediately impress with some sort of 'wow' factor. They do however sound 'right' to my ears at any rate and judging by what I've heard from them so far I have a feeling that I am going to be keeping them for quite some time .
 
My latest adventure in high-end system building:

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:)
 
I don't think it's really an AV system as such - just a system with a TV between the speakers. The SCM40s look good :) - significantly better than when they first came out (but then they are also quite a bit more expensive too ;)).
 
Mike Reed said:
Looks to be about a metre high ! Very droll (and juuuuuust a teensy-weensy bit sarky?):D
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They're tiny speakers. It's just a desktop system, I was going to get some of those plastic PC speakers, but then I thought, nah, get off to Richer Sounds and just get some small 'real' speakers and a cheapo integrated. It sounds very nice, actually. £39.95 for the Wharfedale Diamonds, and £134.95 for the Denon integrated. Nice! :)
 
YNWOAN said:
I don't think it's really an AV system as such - just a system with a TV between the speakers. The SCM40s look good :) - significantly better than when they first came out (but then they are also quite a bit more expensive too ;)).
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Exactly! I live in a small single room flat so there's no room to separate TV and stereo setup. Of course I use it for watching TV and movies also.
 
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Unsure what photobucket did to that image but the ribbon reflections look nothing like the original shot. Strange.
 
They are time portals of interstellar travel to the nth dimension.

There's a small JBL Bluetooth speaker behind one of them.
 
What an interesting system! Most surprised to see Apogee speakers and tube power amps (albeit huge ones) in the same picture. I thought you needed a couple of hundred Krell watts at 2 Ohms to get them to work!
 
Those Apogees look like Star Strek transporters :)
Looks like Spock and Kirk are about to materialise.......they always did say Apogees had good imaging!
 
They are a new speaker based on the Apogee Duetta Signature. There's nothing original Apogee in them apart from the magnets and the metal grid the bass magnets are attached to. X-overs are external.

I had some restored Duettas and decided along with Jon from Reality Audio that they could be improved in a number of ways. He actually built them. Took 2 years, 400-500 e-mails and loads of long phone chats:)
 
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