General Speaker Advice and Recommendations

On the low low end of things, the nest mini gen 2 is definitely worth $30 if you have an android phone and don't mind the potential surveillance. I just got one for free in a promo and it is insanely good at filling a room.

 

Subwoofer type for placement on one side of the room (close to a wall, not far from a corner and confined in front by furniture): downward firing or forward (would have to be sideways) firing? (Rear) port or no? I've read conflicting advice. Yes, I know I should experiment for best placement, but the room is pretty restrictive.

Also - any experience with Triangle subs?

Thanks in advance.

 

Might want to post this in the general advice thread to get more eyeballs on your question, this is the speaker one.

 

I just bought a pimped out 3116 d2 based amp rated at 20 wpc into 8 ohms. What do you think about a pairing with Dynaco A25s for a less resolving kitchen rig for 70s rock that sounds pretty bad on my *real* system.

 

Finally got Roon up and running in the house, so my wife asked for real kitchen speakers and who am I so say no to that! Issue is speakers would have to go on top of the kitchen cabinets (and I'm not doing in-ceiling as that's more involved that I can to do on a finished house). Ceiling is 10ft and cabinets go up to just a smidge more than 7ft. So looking at either powered speakers that work via wifi, or a small wifi amp that would power some small bookshelfs. Rectangular kitchen where the 4th wall (long side of rectangle) is 60% open to other rooms with doored stairway to basement in the middle of that wall. One bank of cabinets on each wall and no way to hide cables between banks of cabinets so I will likely put them on the longer wall cabinets.
Looking for speaker suggestions for the 2 scenarios I mentioned, let's call it a $500 budget.
Normal listing is Paradigm Studio 100s so that is what she is used to and those are in a room that shares an open doorway/halfwall with the kitchen but she doesn't like the overall volume required to run those loud enough to fill the kitchen.

ps. Love having Roon.

 

might get hate for this suggestion but how about a Google Home smart speaker?

 

Have you considered something from Riva? Tremendously good sound, especially if you are trying to fill a room. My Festival does a better job than my Overnight Sensations at filling a room with pleasant sound due to more flexible placement and wider dispersion. Refurbs often available from Monoprice.

 

Smart speaker: looking for a little more than that. Riva: maybe, plus it would be more portable for other uses.

 

I did introduce myself, but this is my first post. I hope it's an appropriate one. Am fully prepared to be hazed.

I did a lot of research and finally upgraded my stereo components about a month ago and am currently working with a Schitt Vidar amp, Saga+ preamp, Mani phono stage, Modi multibit DAC, sources are a Pro-Ject X2 turntable and Roon/Tidal on an ipad connected via USB. The speakers are still the same: a pair of ADS L710s, I believe from the late 70's. Previously I had a Creek 5350 integrated amp and a Bang and Olufsen turntable. The improvement has been pretty remarkable.

The room is 13x16, with the speakers along the long wall about 7 feet apart, raised 1 foot on milkcrates and corkboard, 1 foot from the wall, slightly toed in. Listening position is a couch about 7 1/2 feet from the front of the speakers. Wood floors.

I had always planned on upgrading the speakers, but to be honest, things are sounding really good right now. The final addition was a Sylvania GTB tube to replace the one that came with the Saga, and I was really surprised at how much it improved things. I have a very wide soundstage and realistic imaging, good detail and accuracy. The sweet spot is pretty forgiving. The sound was a little sterile before I switched the tube but now it sounds very lively.

The deficiencies would be a low end that, while well defined, doesn't go quite low enough. I can get really loud, but it needs to get pretty loud to sound it's best, lower volumes are not as impressive. Of course that would always be true to some extent but I feel like something is missing at lower volumes.

But in general, now that the new stuff is all pretty much broken in, I don't have much to complain about. But I have to believe that there have been some advances in speaker tech over the last 40 years.

My remaining budget for speakers is $1000 - $2000 (would love to get closer to the low end of that.) The good luck I've had with Schiit has led me to look into other American direct-order companies like Zu Audio, Tekton, and Magnepan. Also, I really hate going to the Hi Fi store and getting the hard sell so I haven't really auditioned much, just read tons of reviews.

My instinct is that Magnepans would be difficult to get the placement right in my small room. The Zu Audio Omen and Tekton Lore seem highly regarded but people describe their sound very differently... what I've read about the Lore sounds more to my taste, but the Zu is definitely prettier to look at. There are several other larger Tekton models that look nice but again, my room isn't large. And then there are the endless parade of look-alikes, the Elacs, Kefs, Paradigms, all supposed to be very nice. It's hard to know where to start.

My preference is for floorstanders. I do mixing on studio monitors and I sort of don't want to replicate that experience in my living room. I'm not looking for complete neutraility, I get that mixing with my Yamaha HS5s.

Any advice/ hazing is much appreciated!

 

Do you want to be have that same feeling of the low end at both loud and soft listening levels? That's something that will be difficult to achieve simply due to how the ear interprets loudness (and why "loudness" buttons were a thing on old school receivers). A relatively cheap thing to try and staying within the family of Schiit is to insert a Loki EQ to boost up the lower end.

Otherwise, trying to integrate a sub might be the next step.

Do you notice a change in bass when you walk around in the room?

 

Blanket-style speaker suggestions are difficult to make if you're not just listening nearfield on a desk. Some speakers are designed in ways that they "play" the room, or try to remove the room from the equation (like cardioid response/bipole, controlled directivity, or some big-woofer horn loaded designs that require corner placement/boundary reinforcement), some are highly dependent on placement, i.e., fiddly about toe-in and precise distance to room boundaries, and some only sound good waaaay out into the room, like Magnapans. There's also the whole single driver wide-bander thing that can produce really convincing results, but some sound like listening to a voice coil hot glued to a paper plate. Then there's the whole broad issue of sensitivity, crossover design, and amping requirements. If I were to piece together the reasons you aren't happy with the ADS and the Vidar, the interplay between sensitivity/crossover design and amp abilities might point you toward simpler crossovers, or easier to drive speakers. Edit: I see the ADS is spec'd at 93dB/w, but given your description of the sound there might be more to it - maybe old caps or bad surrounds? Who knows.

All that being said, I'd highly encourage you to audition as much as you can, or be prepared to engage in a lot of buying and selling used, and shipping big heavy boxes all over the place. If anything, being able to go into a dealer and not get intimidated by high pressure sales tactics is a life lesson all its own. Learning from auditions isn't just about how a particular speaker sounds, either, it's also learning how certain speakers can be optimized in a room (and with gear that works to a speaker's strengths), if the dealer knows what they're doing. I mean, what dealer is going to set up speakers to sound bad, or even okay, when proper placement could make them sound good, or even superb? It's also about getting a feel for how certain manufacturers can have a "house sound" where moving up or down their product line could be a complete waste of time if you don't like how they voice their speakers in general.

Last thing - my personal impressions of both Zu and Tektons that I've heard is that they're not very awesome. BUT! Don't write off "cookie cutter" brands like KEF or Elac until you've heard them. Likewise, don't write off Zu or Tekton until you've heard them.

 

Agree with @yotacowboy very much. Here’s the best options to do this from my perspective:

1. If you’re willing to spend a fair bit of time going through some trial and error, and live in/near a fairly large city, buy used. You can buy some used speakers at probably 40-60% of retail, and get em home on your system and listen. Don’t like em? Flip them for a similar price you bought them for and then move on to the next pair. Of course you’ll want to research the type of speakers you think you might prefer, which you can pivot on once you’ve tried something if it doesn’t work out. In addition to getting way more bang for your buck, you’ll get a chance to zone in on the sound you prefer and actually get to hear it in YOUR system/room.

The downside of this however is time and patience - it’s a lot of time and effort to find the right speakers used, buy them, try them, and if they don’t work, resell and start the cycle all over. Personally I like this, as it’s part of the hobby for me. But some don’t have the patience or the need to hear lots of options to be happy.

2. Buy new - but ONLY from places that will allow you to audition at home. There is no substitute for this, based on the points @yotacowboy makes above. A while back, I brought a pair of my speakers to a dealer that I wanted to compare to ones they were selling. But my speakers, in their room, on their gear, sounded like shit (and their speakers sounded pretty good in comparison). This didn’t make sense since my speakers sounded great at home. So instead, they let me take them home to try out, and this ended up being a much better way to compare (and was almost a virtual tossup with pluses and minuses for each pair).

3. Buy new, but do extensive auditioning at the dealer - this IMO is the most difficult way to make a decision, since it’s not your gear, not your room. At a minimum you need to listen to as many speakers and compare as many as possible on the SAME equipment (at least at the same dealer) - don’t let the dealer move you around between rooms and equipment to listen to different speakers, this is pointless. You need to be able to compare them directly in the same room, on the same gear. Unfortunately going between dealers to try different speakers/gear again resets things and makes it very difficult to compare.

If you can, try to get the dealer to set you up in a similar sized/shaped room as yours and/or on similar gear. Don’t listen to them on an all tube 10k Mcintosh system for instance, try a modestly priced class A/B amp. Hell, bring some of your gear with you if they’re willing to hook it up (it’s all pretty compact, esp the DAC and preamps ).

4. Buy new based on reviews or recommendations (or marketing) - no, just no. Don’t do this unless you can return them for little or no loss, which is effectively #2 above.

Now regarding Zu and Tekton - both sell direct, so obviously no pre-purchase auditions are possible. However both have 60 day return policies/guarantees I believe where you need to pay the shipping to return them (I think). If you’re ok eating the shipping cost, then give it a shot. But if not, then maybe consider finding a used pair like I mention in #1 above to see what you think.

 

Yeah, maybe I should just get used to listening loudly more often... I only recently moved into a place where I can really turn it up without annoying the neighbors, so I'm used to lower listening levels.

I definitely do notice a change in bass when I walk around the room... it seems lessened in the "sweet spot" where I normally sit and where everything else sounds great, but exaggerated closer to either wall.

Yeah, I should get over myself and go listen to more speakers. I just have trouble knowing what I'm hearing when I'm not in my room and listening to my components. Is it the speaker that sounds good or the fancy tube amp the guy insists on playing them through? The last place I went to, the clerk insisted I listen to a $8000 pair of speakers to know what was possible and it was like a hologram of a band, just amazing. But of course that made it hard to go back to listening to the affordable stuff. But I see what you're saying, learning what the "house sound" of a brand is still possible in that scenario. And to clarify, it's not that I'm exactly unhappy with the Vidar/ ADS combination... it does sound good, I just assume it could sound much better, since the leap in sound quality after upgrading the amp/preamp was huge. But maybe I shouldn't mess with something that's pretty much working and explore a sub first.

Thanks for the replies.

 

I think my best bets are 1 and 2... I am in a big city, and in a home I don't plan on leaving anytime soon, so I could definitely look at it as a long term process. I wasn't thinking in those terms, but there's no reason not to.. I don't really enjoy the flipping part but it does make sense. There must be a ton of used stuff available in the area. And the last store I went to did imply that I could audition stuff in my home so that is an option.

I guess I just thought I would simplify the search by artificially limiting myself to a couple options like Zu and Tekton, and got a little taken by some of the breathless reviews I read. But that approach doesn't really make much sense, does it.

 

Beware of reviews/reviewers/review sites. The more expensive the gear the more you should beware.

 

Well this is huge. For zero cost (except for your time) just try moving your speakers and/or couch around. If you're smack in the middle of the room, try offsetting your listening position or the speakers (asymmetry is not the end of the world).

Shove a bookshelf or plant into a primary reflection point. Throw some couch cushions or a giant costco teddy bear or maybe a bat of spare insulation from an incomplete reno into the corner of the room. Play with the acoustics of what you have before spending more money.

 

Huh, I’ll give it a shot. I sort of thought I had the room dealt with once I got the imaging right, but I guess not. There’s definitely some things I can try.

 

Agreed. And to add to that do the subwoofer crawl but with speakers. Place one speaker at your listening spot at the proper height(tweeter at ear level when seated). Face it towards spots that you deem acceptable for you. Keep your head at the height of the bass drivers and check out the room for best bass.
Use bass test tones and music. Don't be afraid to place them against a wall, this will boost the low end but you can smooth that out with eq. Boosting dips in the low end will not work with eq.

I think the vidar has no problem with connecting only one speaker. Not sure though.
Edit: am awake now, just use balance control in software or disconnect one of the rca cables. Important to have only one playing.

 

@drumbo , some of those old A/D/S speakers were pretty sweet. I’d do a crossover rebuild, (likely just cap replacement) to start out. Even if you’re set on a new pair I’d still tune up the old ones for the learning experience and you might be surprised at the improvement. Also, be careful of the upgrade for the sake of upgrade bug. Often gaining in one area means a loss or sidegrade in another and that can get frustrating and expensive. In Chicago, I’d think you could find some used gems for cheap that you could dump with little to no loss If you don’t like them.

 

The crawl works with a single sub. With two low frequency sources you need to check them against each other as well for interference.