advertisement


Recommendations for warm sounding speakers with plenty defined bass

Castle Howard 3s, I was very impressed when I heard a pair, big improvement on the 2. Wish I'd bought them, in their lovely yew finish as well.
 
justshoemark said:
So I take it use a pair may I ask what you use with them?
Click to expand...
Linn Aktiv into 6 x LK280s. They come alive when you push them and reward with lots of PRAT (in my subjective opinion of course). I mainly play rock, Rainbow, Deep Purple, Floyd, etc at almost concert levels (I have a listening room at the back of my garden just far enough away so as to not be a nuisance to my neighbours). Next time you're in London drop by for a listen.

Oh...I forgot to mention, I have an unusual setup...away from the walls (counter to Linn design/recommendation) toed in and in a near/mid field setup, slightly leaning back on their stands with screws into the floorboards.
 
That sounds good to me.
I run mine with two musical fidelity f15 power amplifiers. And they really do sing.
Mine are away from the wall too.
I really do enjoy them.
 
MF -f15 is a very powerful amp from my quick Google and runs mostly class A. Isobarics I would say give more when used with such powerful amps. If you ever come across a Linn Activ for Isobarics, I suggest you grab it.
 
irb said:
I'd have thought Kef 104/2 would be a strong contender.
Click to expand...

Beat me to it! Important to check that the dust caps on the bass units are in place and the driver surrounds on same aren't disintegrated. I still miss mine; wouldn't go back to them, but still remember them very fondly.
 
I had 104 mk2's for a few weeks (and actually the 104ab's too for years) when they first came out, I'm guessing it must be the late 80s, I wouldn't call the bass 'defined', deep yes, but woolly in my book. My Linn dealer called them the 'boomerang' speakers, he said everyone asked for them but very few kept them, me included.
 
nostromo said:
I had 104 mk2's for a few weeks (and actually the 104ab's too for years) when they first came out, I'm guessing it must be the late 80s, I wouldn't call the bass 'defined', deep yes, but woolly in my book. My Linn dealer called them the 'boomerang' speakers, he said everyone asked for them but very few kept them, me included.
Click to expand...

I don't own KEF 104/2s, and never have. But I've heard them a couple of times in other people's systems, and they seemed capable of very well defined bass. When you're talking bass, though, you can't ignore the amp/speaker interface, and nor can you ignore room acoustics. Get either wrong and the most capable speaker will sound weak or boomy. With the KEFs, the condition of the woofer surrounds and doughnuts will also be important, as has been said already.
 
104/2s are on budget (~£500), suitable for a larger room and can give nice defined deep bass, as long as you can give them a bit of space behind, in my experience.
 
irb said:
I don't own KEF 104/2s, and never have. But I've heard them a couple of times in other people's systems, and they seemed capable of very well defined bass. When you're talking bass, though, you can't ignore the amp/speaker interface, and nor can you ignore room acoustics. Get either wrong and the most capable speaker will sound weak or boomy. With the KEFs, the condition of the woofer surrounds and doughnuts will also be important, as has been said already.
Click to expand...
You're right of course, I might just add that I recall I had a problem with the suspended floorboards (under carpet) coupling with the speakers causing resonance and lots of bass energy being drawn into the floor resulting in booming. I spent a lot of time adjusting their positioning but never got a satisfactory result. My amps at the time were Meridian 105s from a Pink Triangle Pip (that being far superior to the matching meridian 101).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top