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Speaker for a small room (4 x 3 meters): any recommendations?

What sources and your overall budget?
I've decided on going the digital route and investing in a digital transport/streamer + DAC so I can play music from my digital library. I may add a turntable or CD player later.

No clear cut budget. Roughly under $1.5k used or new, but it could be $500 or $1k per component - it will depend on the deal I get, really. Right now I'm sort of trying to narrow down the field and list the most suitable options based on my room situation.
 
Are you in the States? If so it’ll make some suggestions here difficult to find. I’d start with a Raspberry Pi + DAC Hat running Volumio if you’re up for a bit of DIY or a Bluesound Node 2i as the digital source.

Amp wise you could get the functionality of the above built in but I prefer to separate out as things move very fast with digital platforms. A Yamaha 803 Receiver, Cyrus One Cast, various NAD or Quad Vena Play are examples. The vanilla integrated amps from those companies along with Rega would be somewhere to start looking.
 
I only heard positive comments about these SX3 but was always skeptical for the metal tweeter, I feared they would give a fatigue or harsh treble despite ai didn’t listen to them over long periods of time. Did you find any treble harshness out of them ?
ive had them and loved them , great bass, mids and time well....but the tweeter gets spitty if you like it loud. Normal to low is lovely but at say 9 o clock on vol dial on naim supernait its was getting unruly.
 
Duevel Planets speakers, oriented with tweeters away from walls and tuned to the room with the powerful DSPeaker Anti-mode 2.0 room correction device (which can double as DAC) worked really well in my 4.2 x 3.4 metre room.

The pairing ousted the rather more expensive Kudos X2 speakers; it's the two items in combination that work so well, particularly in small or otherwise difficult rooms. The setup should just squeeze into your budget if bought new.

I'm still in the same room, still using the Anti-Mode 2.0, and have now upgraded to the Duevel Venus speakers. They cost four times as much as the Planets and are better... but not nearly four times better! Still, my Planets need a new home...
Wow, never heard of these before! Very interesting.
 
There’s a danger that a dabble into hifi can turn into a lifetime obsession or at least a very serious and potentially expensive hobby. There are various items that a lot of people have owned and refer to when describing their kit or reviewers make mention of, in the UK a lot of people would have owned or heard a Quad and Naim amplifier so it can act as a point of reference if you know what they sound like, similarly a DAC like the Chord Mojo or Qutest is very popular and often mentioned.

If you buy used carefully and stick with common/popular/easily sold on kit, at least for a start, you can effectively try before you buy almost without losing any money. I can’t get to a dealer without a major hassle so I tend to buy 2 items, bake off, sell one on.
 
great suggestion but would you get 30.1 for 1.5k ? Maybe a p3esr ?
I like a lot of what I hear about the little p3esr's - great midrange, 'musical', detailed but non-fatiguing (forgiving?) - but I'm aware they probably won't be up to the task when it comes to more energetic music, with more slam and attack. Adding a sub might help with that extra oomph though but that can only go so far.

Are the 30.1's the smallest Harbeths out there aside from the P3's? I just realized they are smaller than the Compact 7's. Does anyone think they might work in a small room like mine, 30-40 cm away from the wall? Just curious.
 
I like a lot of what I hear about the little p3esr's - great midrange, 'musical', detailed but non-fatiguing (forgiving?) - but I'm aware they probably won't be up to the task when it comes to more energetic music, with more slam and attack. Adding a sub might help with that extra oomph though but that can only go so far.

Are the 30.1's the smallest Harbeths out there aside from the P3's? I just realized they are smaller than the Compact 7's. Does anyone think they might work in a small room like mine, 30-40 cm away from the wall? Just curious.

Speakers with tiny drivers are physically incapable of cleanly reproducing transient low frequency sounds at standard listening levels in a room your size. However, at these frequencies the resonances of your room will almost certainly have the dominant influence on the quality of sound you hear by boosting or cutting the speaker output by tens of dB.

If you are interested in reasonable sound quality at low frequencies you will need a reasonable amount of cone area in the region of 1 x 10-12" or 2 x 7-8" woofers plus doing something to control the effect of room resonances. There are several approaches for controlling the room response with a mixture likely to be the most successful.

If you are relatively uninterested in sound quality at low frequencies and prepared to live with variations of tens of dB in level then one can use smaller cone areas and do nothing to control the room modes. The boom of the room will then raise the level around a few frequencies by possibly tens of dB which will dominate what is heard at low frequencies. The many audiophiles that opt for this approach tend to listen at lower levels which lessens the intrusive effects of room resonances and learn to live with the sound of their room. At higher frequencies people are able to use their binaural hearing to hear through the room to the source to some extent (i.e. why we can recognise the same voice in different rooms) but at low frequencies the wavelength is too long leading to both ears hearing the same thing at the same time and giving the brain nothing to work with to separate the room response from the source.

So how important is sound quality to you are low frequencies?
 
You may find it difficult to find a modern speaker that you don’t find bright.
They all seem to go for that sound these days.
They tend to call them clear rather than bright but there is definitely a lift in the upper midrange and top end.
I hated ribbon tweeters for their clarity.
Impressive at first but fatigue sets in over time.
The kef LS 50 has a decent midrange if a little forward but they still have a bright emphasis IMO.
 
So in effect you are looking for a complete system, incl. streaming. And your set-up is close to a near-field set-up. But presumably it will be a listening room, not a desktop or AV-setup.

Lots of good advice in the thread. To add my thoughts:

You may indeed want to avoid getting sucked too deep in the Hifi-world. I've only dipped in with cheaper stuff (amps, docs and speakers), and my takeaway is that there really are no extreme differences and you may be very happy with reasonably priced kit, as long as you don't start thinking about 'what if'.

You should indeed seriously consider separating the streaming from the amp (the day can be in either). It takes consistent effort to make a good streaming app, and many amp manufacturers don't finish it or don't keep upgrading. So one option is to invest partly in Bluesound, or a Raspberry Pi. You could also consider something like the Quad Vena Play if you use it primarily as an amp which also happens to do streaming fairly well (according to a different thread here); then you may in the future upgrade the amp and invest in a separate streamer if necessary.

It is easier and cheaper, though to have a DAC integrated either in the amp or in the streamer.

For the budget I'd think you might divide it either to 750-750 for speakers versus amp/streamer, or 500-500-500 for speakers, amp and streamer. That suffices for a modest system that actually would not leave much to desire (except stands?).

Starting from the viewpoint that most differences are slight and you should look to be satisfied instead of trying for the 'best', here are my experiences/recommendations. Note: I mainly listen to classical, but also to many other kinds of music. I'm not interested in thundering bass, but do like hearing clear bass notes.

For speakers I'd second the suggest of Amphion; I've got an earlier set (Ion) which do well even at low volume and are non-fatiguing. I also have Harbeth P3ESR but actually the difference during normal listening is slight, the Harbeths are better but I don't miss the Harbeth particularly when I've got the Amphions set up. Personally I found the bass with these speakers sufficient for me, but I haven't tried any of the speakers that others call 'exciting'. I also don't really follow why Harbeths don't do rock or pop.
A different option is to have sub. I've used a fairly cheap Cambridge Minx 22 speakers and Minx sub, which give surprisingly good results and are within budget.

For an amp I'd advice one with sufficient power, but not massive amounts. I've found that a lack of power ultimately is noticeable, even when listening at lower levels. It's like the sound lacks a bit of lustre even though you can identify the details (like faded picture). But in your room some 30 W would probably suffice: the amp depends of course on the impedance of the speakers (so check that when looking at the recommendations). Something like a Quad Vena should work, or a Rega Io/Brio; if you go second hand there are very good deals to be found. I'd be careful when looking at cheaper class D amps which sometimes do not have the capability of providing larger peak power.

So don't worry too much about the 'best' kit, but do look at a few indicators like whether the streaming software will be supported in the future and is user-friendly, what the impedance is of the speakers and whether the amp can provide sufficient (RMS and peak) power into those speakers.

But surely the real experts on the board can fill you in better than I can.
 
If you are genuinely starting out, with no ties, I’d suggest active speakers, even if you have to increase the budget a bit. Bear in mind that so doing will avoid the need to spend more money on an amplifier. Some modern actives also have in-built DACs so you could put together a great, simple system for sensible money that’s also space-efficient and fuss-free. Though I’ve never cared for the Kef sound, their little active 50 speakers are highly acclaimed and it would be crazy to overlook them.
 
I was astonished at how well Spendor 3/5 sounded, placed against the 5mtr wall of my 3 x 5 room, both with a 300b valve amp and a Masterclass. So good, to my ears, they compete with my Audio Note Js in my larger room. Speakers are placed 27cms from wall. My listening is essentially chamber music, voice and jazz.
 
Are the 30.1's the smallest Harbeths out there aside from the P3's? I just realized they are smaller than the Compact 7's. Does anyone think they might work in a small room like mine, 30-40 cm away from the wall? Just curious.

Yes. 30.1's measure 460mm x 277 x 275. These are the same dimensions as the newer 30.2's which have replaced them (at a cool £4k), presumably the 30.1s would only now be available used, but even so, wouldn't they be out of your budget anyway? (Maybe not if you are doing man maths, of course...)

Second, I have no personal experience of either speaker but have done some recent research. My room is the same size as yours, approx 4m x 3m. I spoke to a Harbeth dealer about their speakers for my room. I was told that the P3ESRs would be the ones to go for, I imagine because a larger cabinet/unit is not needed in a room of this size and the P3ESRs are designed to go closer to the wall (any speaker requiring distance away from the wall I'd be tripping over). It is possible the dealer was telling me what he thought I wanted to hear of course.
 
I had P3ESRs in exactly the same size room as the OP and they needed some EQ to deal with low frequency resonances. Proac Tablettes didn't have the same issue - no EQ needed.
 
I only heard positive comments about these SX3 but was always skeptical for the metal tweeter, I feared they would give a fatigue or harsh treble despite ai didn’t listen to them over long periods of time. Did you find any treble harshness out of them ?

I didn't find them harsh at all, could of course be amp dependant though. I had with a rega brio which worked very well, Elex-r I had later was a little more forward but not fatiguing. I have since upgraded to the momentum Sx3i which has same tweeter and changed amps to an exposure 3010S2D and it is excellent. My friend also borrowed them and he is quite sensitive to speakers, found atc, b&w fatiguing with his Naim Atom but not the sx3. Good loud but can here the port if pushed to hard but then again it is a relatively small speaker. Everything with speakers is a compromise but I would highly recommend the sx3. Hope that helps
 
I didn't find them harsh at all, could of course be amp dependant though. I had with a rega brio which worked very well, Elex-r I had later was a little more forward but not fatiguing. I have since upgraded to the momentum Sx3i which has same tweeter and changed amps to an exposure 3010S2D and it is excellent. My friend also borrowed them and he is quite sensitive to speakers, found atc, b&w fatiguing with his Naim Atom but not the sx3. Good loud but can here the port if pushed to hard but then again it is a relatively small speaker. Everything with speakers is a compromise but I would highly recommend the sx3. Hope that helps
Thanks for this very interesting feedback, much appreciated. I have many people I know looking for something to replace the LS3/5A style of speakers so this one has to be added to the list IMO.
 
Would you get Harbeths in the budget though - $1500 for everything?
Sorry if I didn't make myself clear enough - I'm thinking, roughly, under $1.5k for speakers and under $1k per component, but as I said, it all depends - I might keep it simple and more affordable, after all this is my first setup.

When it comes to speakers, given that I don't need concert levels in my room, I gravitate to the idea of getting something more efficient/easy to drive and then pair it with a simple but fun amp like the Rega Brio or something like that. Might be all I really need (or not!:)).
 


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