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Your Quest for the perfect speakers for you

Speakers are such a variable thing one really has to accept the compromise and move on.

For a while I tried the more accurate route with ES14s but back with SARAs they give me the most enjoyment I have ever had from a pair of speakers.

So much is due to the room though, if my room was a clone of the one I had at Scalford a few years back I'd probably be using my KAN MK1s as they sounded superb in that room.

My journey:

Wharefdale Diamond MK1
Linn Helix LS150
Tannoy R2
Tannoy Eyris DC3
Linn SARA
Epos ES14 (still have a pair not used though)
Linn KAN MK1 (still with me in the office)
Linn SARA (going nowhere)

DSC_8655_zps038c892f.jpg
 
I have tried quite a few speakers in the last few years, but Harbeth have always been the mainstay and all time favourites.

I have owned or home demo'd various Proac, Spendor, Kef, Kudos, Totem, Shahinian, PMC, ATC and the list goes on. All were very good but just didn't work in my room, or weren't to my taste. Saying that, the Shahinian Arc stood out for me, but sadly they also stood out for my neighbours downstairs!

I currently have Harbeth M30.1 with the Devialet which I have owned longer than anything else, and have owned the M30 before also. I have owned several pairs of Harbeth P3ESR which are just fantastic, but decided to narrow it down to the M30.1.

As with all speakers, Harbeth are not perfect but we just enjoy listening to them so much, night after night, through the weekend, quiet or loud, and across so many genres of music.

I also own some Linn Kans with a Nait 1 as a second system, they're fantastic, and have found that a good headphone system can bring so much too. The likes of Stax 507, and also the Sennheiser HD800 are amazing for insight into recordings and different experience all round.
 
I have lived with DBLs for the last 14 years and enjoyed them. I have no issues except for their f*cking foam covers which promptly fall apart after 5 years and now very hard to replace, so I use them naked (Not ideal).

I know they are not to everyone's taste (a huge understatement!) but I can't say I've heard anything else that I'd prefer. When they become impossible to maintain, I may consider large old school blue JBLs (43XXs) or some type of large professional monitors. No conventional home speakers for me.

I can't live with small speakers. I need full range speakers as I think low bass is so fundamental to music.
 
My quest for the perfect loudspeakers for me started about a dozen years ago. I wanted the clarity of Quad ESLs, beguiling vocal capabilities of Sonus Fabers, rhythmic integrity of classic Naim/Linn and bass character of vintage Acoustic Research in a non-boxy form.

Regrettably, there is no such thing available in shops for sensible money. So, I took to designing and building my own. This tenth design is my nirvana.

17868934-lg.jpg


I know I'm there because I haven't been able to get motivated to design and build something 'better' for the last four or five years.
 
Time and again just when I thought I have found THE pair of speakers, in the end I keep returning to an old favourite, the Epos ES11s. Right now I'm on to my third pair of ES11s in almost twenty years. And that's not counting the pair of ES12s I've had during this period.

I have now come to accept that there will always be speakers with greater transparency, speed, detail, scale, imaging, etc out there. But for my requirements, at least I can say I know who my musical soulmates are. (However, I cannot promise I will not stray when temptation strikes....)
 
MVV said:
Having been locked in some weird spiral requiring me to sell and buy back Epos 11s and 14s several times on account of never being fully content with their replacements. Spent years and thousands trying to make Briks work and failing. I now use neat Vitos with ultimatum drivers and an SE crossover which allowed me to escape the 14s vortex! (mind you I still keep a pair in a box just in case) I also tried Quad 57s for about a year, in the end the Vitos sounded better to me. Toyed with Kans and found them not to my taste. Really interested in big old Tannoys, ATC actives or Opals. As a virtually vinyl only fellow I would welcome comments from Mr Jesmond Tutu on his speaker 'journey'
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Clearly speaker perfection is such a subjective thing. I've certainly changed speakers far more than I've changed any other component.

I also have had a soft spot for Epos but got on better with ES11's than the 14's. Haven't ever had either Quads or Tannoys.

Shahinians are the speakers I've probably been happiest with, but the Obelisks went do to wifely demands.I should probably have kept the Compasses but I'm hanging onto my power amp as I fancy hearing the Larks!

I've been lucky to hear quite a few systems over the years including many Naim orientated ones when I used to help out in a shop and visited customers homes.

The Opals were initially disappointing but (to my ears anyway) they needed a lot of running in being brand new. Now I've done that, fiddled with EQ, maxxed out the output of the Weiss and got very good stands, I'm extremely happy with them. They do a lot of what I want from a speaker, great vocals, good timing, decently wide soundstage, excellent bass and not at all fatiguing. They are one of those speakers where you can hear things you've not heard before on tracks you know well and they've had a very positive reaction from mates too.

I'd like to hear some big active ATC's but they won't fit into my life at the moment so the Opals will do!
 
My hifi problems have been related to moving around a lot in the past 9 years or so, so my 'listening room' has changed so much I have had to adapt the system to every room. Thats ranged from a large cottage with no neighbours to a small box room in a terrace and everything in between while at university.

A history in pictorial form:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hoopsontoast/sets/72157628426948849/

Since buying my first place 2-3 years back I have been able to experiment a lot with the types of speakers, notable models have been my Keesonic Kolts, ATC SCM10s, Magnepan MMGs, KEF 104/2 and my current all round compromise, the Rega R9s.
Other notable speakers were the Harbeth P3ES I had on loan, the excellent little Rega Alya, Tannoy Chester and the Goodmans Axiom 201 based speakers with DIY Add-On Ribbon Tweeters.

Its all getting a mix of getting the bass right in my room, some that really set off issues were the 104/2s compared to the MMGs, being Dipole/Open Baffle, worked superbly well. But then I have had some that should have worked that did not at all well, like the Klipsch Heresey for example, just sounded strange in the bass even though I really wanted to like them.

There have been loads of speaker I have owned in previous houses too, far too many to mention but some stand out ones were the Rega R7, Kord Tornado, Tannoy Cheviots, and ATC SCM7.
Some letdowns were the KEF XQ1, compared to the Rega R3 they were just not in the same league.

I even tried some more DIY Speakers, using some full-range-drivers (Fostex FF225K and Veravox 5S), some refurbishment of some old monitors (Kord Vulcan and Acoustic Energy AE2) and my foray in to DIY Actives with a Compression Driver/Horn based project with using Radian and Volt drivers.

It was all fun experimenting but I have finally found in the Rega R9s, a perfect compromise of bass integration, very good tonal balance and I have stopped worrying about speakers and just been listening to music!


System by RSdesignUK, on Flickr
 
Where to start? I've had loads of speakers over the last decades. The ones that have satisfied me the longest are

Epos ES14
Roiene RX200
a bespoke pair of speakers with Phy-HP drivers
Altec VOTT
still current JBL LSR6332

Speakers I've owned and didn't get along with include Harbeth C7ES2, C7ES3 and SHL5.

My ATC SCM25A will come on the market soonish. I've decided my current room needs something with a bigger bass driver, possibly a bigger ATC or some JBL 9800s or even M2.
 
thebiglebowski said:
In the last 3 years I've tried many different speakers and although some were very good the most important thing I've learnt is matching the speakers to the room. The SBLs are highly rated but just wouldn't work in my room and sounded terrible.

I've now got a set of Shahinian Arcs and although I plan to keep them will keep an eye out for a later/newer version of them.

I think the factors for choosing speakers are in order:

1. Room size/acoustics
2. Amplifier
3. Music choice

B&W DM10
Linn Keilidh (passive/active)
Naim SBL mk1
Naim SBL mk2
Naim n-sats
Neat Elites
Neat Petite SX
PMC DB1i Gold
Linn Kans
ATC SCM7
EB Acoustics EB2
ProAc Response 1sc
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I agree with 1.2.3. but speakers listed are of no interest.
 
Thanks Jezmond, I do wish you hadn't mentioned Obelisks, I'm trying to pretend they don't exist.
 
MVV said:
Thanks Jezmond, I do wish you hadn't mentioned Obelisks, I'm trying to pretend they don't exist.
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You're welcome!

They were one of the speakers I always aspired to after first hearing them, even though they were mk1's, I still loved them. The others were SBL's which I bought brand new, but they just sounded terrible in my room so didn't last long. I could have bought ex-dem Arcs at the time - one of my hifi mistakes.
 
Disbeliever said:
I agree with 1.2.3. but speakers listed are of no interest.
Click to expand...

Sorry to have bored you, I assume your speaker history is enough to have us all stop what we are doing and gaze transfixed with reverence and admiration?
 
Speakers it would seem are by a stretch the most important component for the simple reason that they have to transform an electronic signal into moving air. So the typical audiophile reaction might to spend lots of money relative to anything else. Wrong, it would seem. Have a pair of Harbeth SHL5+ and are just a total joy. Totally musical with a wide range of music. No new theories, just a fabulous mid/bass driver and crossovers in a thin wall cabinet. Mine are version 7 since 1977. Different speakers for different size rooms or uses, three using the same mid/bass driver, two a smaller version.
 
I've had quite a lot of speakers and ES14s are the ones that stayed a long time and were very hard to beat (oddly enough I've heard other people's ES14s since then and been underwhelmed).
I replaced the ES14s with pair of Linn Ninkas, which seemed to do a lot of things better but despite moments of greatness were somehow never completely musically satisfying.

Then I went DIY and built some Proac R2.5 clones. They were very characterful. Then I did a load of Troels Graveson's mods whcih removed all the character but did not fix the faults. It was a very interesting learning curve and gave me some insight into the voicing of loudspeakers and the effect of component selection, stuffing, bracing and port tuning etc.
I renovated a pair of Gale 401s, but they never sounded anywhere hear as good as a friend's pair and wifey did not like the widescreen look.

Then I built a pair of Denis Murphy's CAOW1s only for the purposes of having a neutral/flat measuring speaker as a baseline for some 'real' speakers. However they exceeded all expectations, especially when converted to 3-way semi-active operation. Are they perfect? - no I'm sure they're not, but there are not many other speakers I would want to live with - Quad 989s if I had a dedicated room and could live with the bass limitations, Kudos Titans maybe, that's about it.
 
thebiglebowski said:
Sorry to have bored you, I assume your speaker history is enough to have us all stop what we are doing and gaze transfixed with reverence and admiration?
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Not bored but I have heard a vast amount of speakers, currently my favorites are the latest Sonus Faber Guanari driven by the Arcam A49 amplifier, smooth, realistic sound , no listening fatigue.
 
Disbeliever said:
Not bored but I have heard a vast amount of speakers, currently my favorites are the latest Sonus Faber Guanari driven by the Arcam A49 amplifier, smooth, realistic sound , no listening fatigue.
Click to expand...

Those are of no interest.
 
Pretty happy with current speakers which given a real mix of fine detail and huge soundstage and I have had for nearly 3 years which is good going for me , martin Logan summit x . I do rather hanker after some magico s5 but the summit are brilliant too
 
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