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Best speakers for a vivid sound at low volume

Time to say a public thanks to Rob for allowing me to hear his ESL 63s, which sounded great. I've not had much luck with the Quads I've heard, which I now realise were set up all wrong. Tilted with stands - sorted!

I was really surprised at how versatile the 63s are. As Rob said, they are real chameleons, seeming mellow and smooth at one moment, and then compelling and dynamic, almost like horns, at another moment. They resolved quite a few of the little nagging issues I've been having with many of the boxy boxes I've heard.

They could be the way forward for me. The bass was really quite decent; it was only on minimal techno that they were slightly slow (on the deepest kick drums), but they were good with Bootsy Collins style deep funk bass, and with the deepest regions of the stand up bass.

I'm listening to my friend's Devores now, which are sounding great, but I can't wait forever for the distributor to get the new Gibbon 88s, and ESL 63s might even be better with my room.

Rooms though - they can ruin everything, so I'd better not get my hopes up too much!
 
Yes they were good; quite well balanced on sax, without emphasising the bright edge or taking it off. I'm used to a chestier and slightly darker coloration on the Harbeths with tenor. It's a slight emphasis which I find addictive. But the weakness of the Harbeths is the upper ranges of the soprano. The 63s were definitely superior here. I think what you've said about the problems with crossovers comes into play here, since there must be something going on in the harmonics of the soprano sax that is not served well by a lot of the two way speakers I've heard. (on the other hand the Harbeth Monitor 30.1 is very good with soprano sax, so the tweeter is crucial)

Also the Quads were better with the trumpet. That Miles track that I'm obsessed with - 'Mood' on ESP - it's very difficult to do that without screeching and the inner part of the trumpet sounding thin. The 63s did a pretty good job of it. They didn't approach the miracle I've heard on my friend's Devores, but that was only when he was using super-tweeters, and we were listening to the vinyl on his Hyperspace, and many other factors.

With piano I thought they were really good, ever after a very brief moment of the Boulez piano sonata.

Thanks for your pointer on Quads Tony - your intuition was good.
 
Elephantears said:
Yes they were good; quite well balanced on sax, without emphasising the bright edge or taking it off. I'm used to a chestier and slightly darker coloration on the Harbeths with tenor. It's a slight emphasis which I find addictive. But the weakness of the Harbeths is the upper ranges of the soprano. The 63s were definitely superior here. I think what you've said about the problems with crossovers comes into play here, since there must be something going on in the harmonics of the soprano sax that is not served well by a lot of the two way speakers I've heard. (on the other hand the Harbeth Monitor 30.1 is very good with soprano sax, so the tweeter is crucial)

Also the Quads were better with the trumpet. That Miles track that I'm obsessed with - 'Mood' on ESP - it's very difficult to do that without screeching and the inner part of the trumpet sounding thin. The 63s did a pretty good job of it. They didn't approach the miracle I've heard on my friend's Devores, but that was only when he was using super-tweeters, and we were listening to the vinyl on his Hyperspace, and many other factors.

With piano I thought they were really good, ever after a very brief moment of the Boulez piano sonata.

Thanks for your pointer on Quads Tony - your intuition was good.
Click to expand...

Not trying to cause a row here, but what do super tweeters in conjunction with a vinyl source bring to the party?

There's 2/3rds of SFA coming off vinyl at 16Khz, let alone in the supertweeter range, surely?

Chris
 
Given the none-linear response of the human ear, wouldn't the ideal speaker slightly boost bass at low levels, to give the perception of a more linear sound? You know, the old 'loudness control'. it's maybe not so daft.
 
Mescalito said:
Not trying to cause a row here, but what do super tweeters in conjunction with a vinyl source bring to the party?

There's 2/3rds of SFA coming off vinyl at 16Khz, let alone in the supertweeter range, surely?
Click to expand...

Vinyl can actually have a far higher HF level than CD with several carts being spec'd to 60-100Khz. Largely academic as most studio mics are out of the game at about 14-16khz! Regardless I'm convinced any effect / benefit of a supertweeter can be put down to altering treble dispersion, banance, or ironing out a few response kinks / dips. I borrowed a pair of Tannoy ones and could very clearly hear them on all their cut-off settings, so they are definitely operating well within the audible range as I can only hear up to 13khz! I rather liked them in many respects, though found them best on their lowest level and highest cut-off despite my having efficient speakers.
 
Good to meet Andrew and glad he might be on the way to a solution.
Some great music played :)

Re low bass, that's going to vary significantly between rooms and positioning but at least there's room for experiment. I get -6db at 35Hz which does me fine and no particular peaking, unlike with box loudspeakers in the same room.

paskinn said:
Given the none-linear response of the human ear, wouldn't the ideal speaker slightly boost bass at low levels, to give the perception of a more linear sound? You know, the old 'loudness control'. it's maybe not so daft.
Click to expand...

ESLs (57 & 63) display a little LF shelf boost when used in smallish rooms, so at low listening levels you effectively have this effect built in when running the pre amp flat.
For louder listening I switch in 3dB of shelf cut cornered at 170hz, which actually puts the response back to flat and better suits louder listening.

As a young chap new to hi-fi who visited me for a bake-off last weekend commented, 'wow, you can do that on the pre amp? - why don't more pre amps do this?'

Quite :)
 
I think the best thing you can do for low-level listening is to eliminate as much extraneous noise from your listening environment as you can.
 
I now have some ESL 63s in the house. They are very pleasing, but it's early days yet. I haven't played around with amps too much, but my initial impression is that they like the ability to double into 4 ohms, possibly more than they like lots of power.
They certainly answer almost exactly what I was looking for in this thread - they can convey tonal colour and spaciousness at low volume. Whether they will be dynamic enough in the long run is another question. Rob's system showed some promising signs of this, so I will keep them here for a while and see how they work out. The one thing I'm certain is that they don't have that tactile quality in the bass that I experienced with the Devore Nines in my room. Going back to the Harbeths, and hearing the Quads in my room, I was struck by how much I missed that taught and sinewy quality. However there is an airiness that does in some way compensate. The 63s are almost uniquely lacking in pushiness, but here lies the danger of pipe and slipper. Experiments with amps and perhaps subs lay ahead.
 
Spend time getting used to that Quad midband - it really is magical. The only thing missing is artifice! One reason I'm taking so long to get a pair myself is I reckon that they'd be all but impossible to upgrade from, i.e. that's probably the last stop on the track, and I don't think I'm finished playing about yet!
 
Robert said:
Good to meet Andrew and glad he might be on the way to a solution.
Some great music played :)

Re low bass, that's going to vary significantly between rooms and positioning but at least there's room for experiment. I get -6db at 35Hz which does me fine and no particular peaking, unlike with box loudspeakers in the same room.



ESLs (57 & 63) display a little LF shelf boost when used in smallish rooms, so at low listening levels you effectively have this effect built in when running the pre amp flat.
For louder listening I switch in 3dB of shelf cut cornered at 170hz, which actually puts the response back to flat and better suits louder listening.

As a young chap new to hi-fi who visited me for a bake-off last weekend commented, 'wow, you can do that on the pre amp? - why don't more pre amps do this?'

Quite :)
Click to expand...


So how do the later models fair at low volume? 98xx, 28xx, 29xx
 
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