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How good can stand speakers be ?

dweezil said:
For what you're thinking of spending maybe trade in and go for a pair of PMC IB2S-As.
Power enough for Led Zep and my
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My thoughts were similar reading the original post. Get some good active stand mounts. I had PMC AML1's and they could certainly do justice to any sort of rock. They also shine playing any other sort of music. http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/pmc/aml1.html

Also to get good loud rock from a small speaker is reasonably possible, but needs lots of power. 15watts is ridiculous, I'm not surprised it didn't satisfy you. You need 50watts minimum.
 
wacko said:
I have Harbeth P3ESR speakers and they are good. Very good for the price. But they cannot pretend to do justice to Led Zeppelin tonight. Is there anyone out there who has an informed opinion whether buying Focal Utopia Diablo at 5 times the price will solve that little issue ? But I want it all : acoustic jazz/ blues, classical... Think I am a little greedy ? Check the price ! Ampilfier is Leben valve 15 watt...
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To be honest this is why I did not go for the Harbeth P3ESR myself, I tried them with a Nait XS and an Audio Reasearch amplifier and they did not do any justice to Led zeppelin either.

Lee
 
I'd avoid the Diablos - and I'm a huge Focal fan (I own Micro Utopia Bes). Two dealers whose opinions I respect (both Focal dealers) say that the Diablos are ruthless in showing up the source/ancillaries. Derek at AudioAV (when he was at Infidelity) told me he heard the Diablos on the end of ridiculously expensive Ayre electronics and said it was the best sound he had ever heard - but at a real price. Nothing less will do....

I can't comment on the Led Zep CD (not my type of music!) but a cheaper alternative is Micro Utopia Bes which have fantastic bass, oozing detail (the treble is on the bright side but not tizzy) or some of the more recent Focals. When I heard them I went in to hear some LP12 upgrades - but rather than buying the upgrades I bought the speakers.
 
Led Zeppelin CDs are not a patch on the vinyl (especially the red/plum lables) and I only listen on vinyl for this reason. I am lucky in that I bought all the albums when they came out and have a full compliment of first pressings up to and including Physical Grafitti.
Other CD releases of old rock, such as all the Pink Floyd stuff is much closer to the album in quality (but still not as good), so it should have been possible to remaster the Led Zep stuff better IMO
 
barrymidd said:
Led Zeppelin CDs are not a patch on the vinyl (especially the red/plum lables) and I only listen on vinyl for this reason. I am lucky in that I bought all the albums when they came out and have a full compliment of first pressings up to and including Physical Grafitti.
Other CD releases of old rock, such as all the Pink Floyd stuff is much closer to the album in quality (but still not as good), so it should have been possible to remaster the Led Zep stuff better IMO
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Agree++++
If I still liked it as much as I did in the 70s it would drive me to get a TT again.....
 
Mescalito said:
A watt is a watt is a watt, Wacko.

Chris
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Yes and no. It also depends very much on how that power is delivered over the frequency spectrum. Things like slew rate and amplifier output impedance amongst other things make a big difference. So also does the speakers load impedance that changes with frequency and sometimes that can be large.

Vinyl goes from 20Hz to 20KHz so its a wide range to control.

Cheers,

DV
 
I've heard the Utopias at a dealer, albeit fairly briefly.
Yes, they are very revealing with incredible detail. At their price, you wouldn't expect to see them on anything other than a pretty top-flight system, would you?
Bags of clarity & openness, quite a bit of clean & pretty deep bass, at least in the room I heard them in.
And that is a very salient point. Especially at their price point, the speaker/room interaction will be vital & a lengthy home dem would be a must. In the right room & on the end of a very good system, they can be outstanding.
Equally, I guess, on a less sympathetic (& lesser) system in a different room & the results could be very different.
Don't suppose that helps much really, does it?
Matt.
 
wacko said:
Have you heard valve amplification? I estimate that valve watts are worth about 10 times solid state watts...
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Thats far from my experience with the little Leben amp

In fact at best it may have performed like 20 or 25 watt but this is no way whats required on normal speaker around 86-88db for heavy rock, you need horn or some Rehdeko's to get a decent SPL and mind you very effective speakers won't do very much low bas.
Have you considered the Klipsch range (Heresy, Klipschorn etc..)

Don't mistake I like Leben very well allthough it lacked some transparency during my sessions, clearly it likes speakers above 90db+.

Some of my best experience with good rock like Led Zep etc was back in the 80'ies by some Harman Kardon electronics (more than 100W) powering some very large JBL boxes, can't recall what turntable was used.

I'm afraid those who will be most happy for you buying Diablo's for Leben 300 are the Focal sales manager staff
 
If the OP wants to get a realistic and dynamic sound from a 15w amp then he'll need very sensitive speakers. For classical and Jazz peaks up to 105dB need to be handled and for a rock group maybe 130dB.

Horn speakers can deliver 110dB for 1 watt at 1 meter. So two horns at say 10ft (3.5m) listening position with a 15w amp can give peaks of 110dB + 3dB (for 2) - 10dB (at 3.5m) + 12 (15 watts) = 115dB.

To get 130dB you'll need an amp that can give 27dB thats um like 500wpc.

Cheers,

DV

PS You can stand 130dB for circa 6s before hearing damage..........
 
I think *small stand mounts can be very good, but they don't drive the room in the same way as speakers with larger drivers.

Ive been trying a few smaller standmounts at home the last being the a pair of Events, despite not driving the room in the same way as bigger speakers, for the size of them them dynamics is totally bonkers, with a real lack of compression, they also sounded very pure, low distortion and transparent (so transparent i could actually hear Susan Boyles beard growing as she sang) with no edge to the sound at all.

I have heard the Micro Utopias with Accuphase at the shows, and always thought they have sounded excellent, the Events better them in dynamics by a considerable margin.
The Events miss the last octave which is only to be expected with them being so small. A very impressive little speaker.

*Just for James :)
 
muz640 said:
I think stand mounts can be very good, but they don't drive the room in the same way as speakers with larger drivers.
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I think these ATC SCM300 standmounts would be just fine.

atc-scm300asl-pro.jpg
 
I used to have a room that was approx 5 feet x 6 feet.

A small pair of missions filled the room totally..

following thread logic, I needed somethiing in there so large I'd be trapped against the wall and couldnt close the door.


so to original mr poster, course you can get a big led-zep sound from little speakers.. in a little room.
 
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