Yes frugalhorns are aplenty second hand and even better is the pearl sibelius which some rave about . I believe a dealer called ? Art of sound has them on demo
In the 1970s I ran Cambridge R50s which rivalled my later ESLs but emphasised 401 rumble, so they had to go.
Not many speakers will sound bad when driven by a 500..........I inherited the R50s my dad bought new in 1972. In the 90s I replaced the tweeters and fitted new crossovers and that got them singing nicely again. By the late 90s I fancied a change and snapped up a pair of Isobariks. Wouldn’t call it an upgrade, just a different presentation. I gave the R50s to a deserving pal.
A couple of months back he brought them over and we tried them out on the end of my Naim 552/500. I was astonished how good they were and would be very content to run a pair.
Not many speakers will sound bad when driven by a 500..........
Make sense, always seemed to me Naim amps are a better match with paper woofer and soft fabric tweeter.My B&W 802Ns sounded awful with a Naim 500 - scritchy, screechy treble and aggressive midrange. A Chord SPM1200E was far better.
Apparently it was up for sale recently!Oh go on then….
Listened to the B&O BeoLab 90s (think Casper the Ghost trapped in carbonite) which are on demo in Harrods a couple of days ago.
The listening space is very poor as it is open and there is a lot of ambient noise from other devies and people. But the depth and quality of the bass was noticeable. Treble and imaging however seemed mutually exclusive as the salesman played with the DSP settings. Might be worth further investigation...
I'd like to hear a lot of these iconic speakers (ESL 57's, tannoy Westminsters, big horns, enormous dalek Wilsons etc.) but I like listening to music in the living room and even with an unlimited budget, I wouldn't want an enormous living room, or a living room completely dominated by huge speakers, so as a result, my nomination for "Loudspeaker I'd most like to try" is relatively modest...
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