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Small speakers that sound like big ones

ossy

pfm Member
I have a pair of ruark sabre’s (stand mount) which replaced a pair of ruark talisman’s (floorstanders). I gave up the talismans after quite a few years as they were really too big for the room, both visually and bass wise. Whilst the sabre’s are lovely things I miss the extra weight of the floorstanders, bigger drivers I suppose?

Is there a small/med standmount that sounds bigger or is that an unrealistic expectation? Small speakers have limitations and floorstanders are designed to do different things, I guess. Should I just use the sabres whilst appreciating them for all the good things they do whilst bearing in mind they are smaller boxes or go looking for something a bit weightier?

I listen mainly to jazz and some acoustic stuff almost always on vinyl. The room is approx 3.5x4m

I should also add that I’ve ended up with a nice simple system that I love, having gone up an down the hifi chain a bit. It’s now maximum pleasure / minimum guilt! You lot have always given sage advice so I appreciate any input, good or bad!

System is rega 3/exact, quad vena, ruark sabres, (rasberry pi for occasional digital duties)
 
I've checked the spec of the Ruark Sabres. There is no information on the size of the main driver but the bass is indicated to go down to 50Hz +/-3dB. If possible, try to find a speaker that is able to go down to about 40Hz, close to that mark if not lower. It doesn't need to be a floorstander as a bookshelf will do equally fine. Personally I prefer bookshelf speakers.

I'm not familiar with Quad vena so I'd leave others to recommend on suitable matching speakers. By the way, I'm not a fan of subwoofer as well although I have one. The sub will only add to the complexity and you are correct it will also contribute to the clutter especially in small to medium sized rooms.
 
The boenicke w5 astonishes with scale and bass grunt, but not cheap, and needs some space to breathe.
 
I own ELAC 310ce speakers and they are tiny, but sound rich and lush. They don't do slam though, but perhaps a larger ELAC might do the trick.

https://www.hifichoice.com/content/elac-vela-bs-403

A quote from the linked review of ELAC 403...

"Playing Ty Segall’s cover of Every 1’s A Winner, the ELAC instantly locks on to the infectious, funky groove. Dense percussion and guitars have fantastic definition and serious punch. Deep bass extension catches me off guard, even to the point that my son asks if the system has a hidden subwoofer."
 
I ran a pair of Neat iota alphas for several years. They're not perfect speakers but IMHO they can be a lot of fun and nail 'sounding bigger than they look'. I bought them for reasons of domestic harmony (my wife was sick of floor standers dominating the room). I found them best pretty close to the rear wall. The larger iota xplorers are still low-rise floor standers which might dominate the room less than talismans?

I upgraded from the iota alphas to Shahinian Arcs which are not small speakers but are less than 70 cm tall, are easy to accommodate, and don't visually dominate the room. They're easy to move around so they can be obscured behind furniture then placed where you want them when its time for a serious listen.
 
I also highly recommend Iota’s. They look great, sound great and definitely pull off the trick of sounding way bigger than they look. More importantly they are such fun to listen to. They just seem to make you want to keep playing one more track!
 
I have a pair of ruark sabre’s (stand mount) which replaced a pair of ruark talisman’s (floorstanders). I gave up the talismans after quite a few years as they were really too big for the room, both visually and bass wise. Whilst the sabre’s are lovely things I miss the extra weight of the floorstanders, bigger drivers I suppose?

Is there a small/med standmount that sounds bigger or is that an unrealistic expectation? Small speakers have limitations and floorstanders are designed to do different things, I guess. Should I just use the sabres whilst appreciating them for all the good things they do whilst bearing in mind they are smaller boxes or go looking for something a bit weightier?

I listen mainly to jazz and some acoustic stuff almost always on vinyl. The room is approx 3.5x4m

I should also add that I’ve ended up with a nice simple system that I love, having gone up an down the hifi chain a bit. It’s now maximum pleasure / minimum guilt! You lot have always given sage advice so I appreciate any input, good or bad!

System is rega 3/exact, quad vena, ruark sabres, (rasberry pi for occasional digital duties)
Ruarks used Dynaudio drivers and had a generally reasonably similar, albeit to these ears, warmer, sound than equivalent Dyns. I’ve had a pair of Excite X16s with a single big bass driver and they were really nice. I imagine Evoke 20s would be more of the same.

HTH

Iain.
 


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