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Post by novisnick on Nov 10, 2016 21:43:17 GMT -5
Have you considered the Sonus Faber Venere line? Both the 1.5 and 2.0 bookshelves are within your price range. They sound excellent and look great to boot; I'm very happy with my 2.0 pair. I don't know of any local dealers unfortunately. No Best Buy Magnolia Store? |
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Post by gzubeck on Nov 11, 2016 12:33:16 GMT -5
I have to ask...what kind of tweeters do you like? Soft, metal, or ribbon etc... How far from the wall can you go with your speakers? How loud do you need to go? I'll give you my story about my speakers that I built myself.... I'm using the seas h1212 metal dome tweeters...I consider them better than anything b&w puts in their sub $2000 speakers...I use the SB acoustics non coated sb17 6.5 inch drivers for $58 each. I put them in a parts express enclosure that I had to modify to fit the 6.5s. the base I get are better than floorstanders at $2000 a pair. If I was to do this build over again i would get the satori drivers which would be drop in replaceable in the parts express enclosures without modification of the cutout. Also the satori will allow a smoother transition between the woofer and tweeter with a second order on the woofer and a third on the tweeter. Cross them a little higher at maybe 2200-2500 khz to allow less overlap in the sensitive upper mid range frequencies. The satori will allow this versus a more aggressive higher order crossover with the generic USB woofers. Also, I would consider adding maybe a half inch of some kind of wood on the sides for additional sound dampening. The top and bottoms don't need it. Have MADISOUND design and build the crossovers. I would think for $400 each for $800 total you would have a set of bookshelf's that rival any $3000 pair for sound quality. If you want to up the ante you can have your enclosures custom built to look even better.
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Post by Cogito on Nov 11, 2016 18:11:38 GMT -5
I don't know of any local dealers unfortunately. No Best Buy Magnolia Store? Nope! Closest one is two hours away and to be honest, I'd never buy my gear from Best Buy. I'd MUCH rather support a local mom & pop business if I could. |
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Post by novisnick on Nov 11, 2016 20:01:28 GMT -5
No Best Buy Magnolia Store? Nope! Closest one is two hours away and to be honest, I'd never buy my gear from Best Buy. I'd MUCH rather support a local mom & pop business if I could. Mine is about as far. I run a mom & pop restaurant, so I thank you so very much! I feel the same but have NO WHERE to purchase any gear. Our last local folded due to small demand and a very small population. Before he closed I purchased all I could that he had that I wanted. Paradigm, Klipsch and Rega! Everything else must be internet direct or a long trip out of town. |
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Post by Cogito on Nov 11, 2016 20:55:29 GMT -5
I have to ask...what kind of tweeters do you like? Soft, metal, or ribbon etc... How far from the wall can you go with your speakers? How loud do you need to go? I'll give you my story about my speakers that I built myself.... I'm using the seas h1212 metal dome tweeters...I consider them better than anything b&w puts in their sub $2000 speakers...I use the SB acoustics non coated sb17 6.5 inch drivers for $58 each. I put them in a parts express enclosure that I had to modify to fit the 6.5s. the base I get are better than floorstanders at $2000 a pair. If I was to do this build over again i would get the satori drivers which would be drop in replaceable in the parts express enclosures without modification of the cutout. Also the satori will allow a smoother transition between the woofer and tweeter with a second order on the woofer and a third on the tweeter. Cross them a little higher at maybe 2200-2500 khz to allow less overlap in the sensitive upper mid range frequencies. The satori will allow this versus a more aggressive higher order crossover with the generic USB woofers. Also, I would consider adding maybe a half inch of some kind of wood on the sides for additional sound dampening. The top and bottoms don't need it. Have MADISOUND design and build the crossovers. I would think for $400 each for $800 total you would have a set of bookshelf's that rival any $3000 pair for sound quality. If you want to up the ante you can have your enclosures custom built to look even better. Well, I've pretty much owned it all. I have no real tweeter preference as they all can sound great. IF I had to choose, I would probably go with a large ribbon type. Why? No idea, I just think they are cook and I've heard a couple and they were fine performers. I don't want my speakers to be more than two feet from the back wall as my listening space is rather limited. When I'm in a jam'n mood, I like it about as loud as a jazz hall. I wanna feel the bass, but I don't want it so loud as to cause fatigue. I have considered designing and building my own. If anything, I lack the "fab"ing skills. I also understand to properly build a speaker system, considerable effort is put into the physics and design. This requires technical skills beyond my pay grade. Even companies with large resources, designing a speaker can take years and a whole lotta money. I'd rather leave it to the credentialed pros to build my next system. |
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Post by Cogito on Nov 11, 2016 21:00:12 GMT -5
Nope! Closest one is two hours away and to be honest, I'd never buy my gear from Best Buy. I'd MUCH rather support a local mom & pop business if I could. Mine is about as far. I run a mom & pop restaurant, so I thank you so very much! I feel the same but have NO WHERE to purchase any gear. Our last local folded due to small demand and a very small population. Before he closed I purchased all I could that he had that I wanted. Paradigm, Klipsch and Rega! Everything else must be internet direct or a long trip out of town. They're are a few local dealers stereo shops within an hour of me and if given the chance, I will buy from them. Emotiva is really the first gear I've bought online. It was a good choice for me because no other brand offered what I wanted for the price. Yes, I was able to spend considerably more, but why? If push comes top shove, I will purchase online, but I prefer the service and ease of buying from a local. |
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Post by gzubeck on Nov 12, 2016 0:59:03 GMT -5
All I can say is that my speakers sound better than the bookshelf speakers at the magnolia room at best buy. It's not even close! The room sound correction plus a bifrost dac are just killing it. What you get in a store bought speaker are substandard drivers. The SB acoustics paper and papyrus drivers are insanely good in the base. A two way crossover is fairly easy to do and if you get fairly close in the crossover room acoustics become much more important than getting a perfect crossover. A third order for the tweeter with a second order on the woofer will get the time alignment fairly close for integration. At first I thought my new dac was a little bright but with acoustic treatment it sounds really good. The parts express enclosures are set .5 cubic foot with a built in Port. Add in 1/4 lb of natural wool fiber with half inch of foam on the sides and top and it's pretty much done.. My only complaint is that the base is so deep that the cabinets vibrate when it goes into sub 100 hrz...that's why I said it needs an extra half inch on the inside or outside on the sides to reduce vibration. By the way I've got the worst setup for acoustics with only a foot away from the wall. I'm using mineral wool I bought at Lowe's for sound dampening. Acoustic dampening between the speakers has helped a lot on the wall directly behind the speakers.
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Post by yves on Nov 12, 2016 4:21:51 GMT -5
All I can say is that my speakers sound better than the bookshelf speakers at the magnolia room at best buy. It's not even close! The room sound correction plus a bifrost dac are just killing it. What you get in a store bought speaker are substandard drivers. The SB acoustics paper and papyrus drivers are insanely good in the base. A two way crossover is fairly easy to do and if you get fairly close in the crossover room acoustics become much more important than getting a perfect crossover. A third order for the tweeter with a second order on the woofer will get the time alignment fairly close for integration. At first I thought my new dac was a little bright but with acoustic treatment it sounds really good. The parts express enclosures are set .5 cubic foot with a built in Port. Add in 1/4 lb of natural wool fiber with half inch of foam on the sides and top and it's pretty much done.. My only complaint is that the base is so deep that the cabinets vibrate when it goes into sub 100 hrz...that's why I said it needs an extra half inch on the inside or outside on the sides to reduce vibration. By the way I've got the worst setup for acoustics with only a foot away from the wall. I'm using mineral wool I bought at Lowe's for sound dampening. Acoustic dampening between the speakers has helped a lot on the wall directly behind the speakers. My Canton Vento 890.2 DC speakers are store bought. Their drivers are not substandard. |
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Post by gzubeck on Nov 12, 2016 10:42:54 GMT -5
All I can say is that my speakers sound better than the bookshelf speakers at the magnolia room at best buy. It's not even close! The room sound correction plus a bifrost dac are just killing it. What you get in a store bought speaker are substandard drivers. The SB acoustics paper and papyrus drivers are insanely good in the base. A two way crossover is fairly easy to do and if you get fairly close in the crossover room acoustics become much more important than getting a perfect crossover. A third order for the tweeter with a second order on the woofer will get the time alignment fairly close for integration. At first I thought my new dac was a little bright but with acoustic treatment it sounds really good. The parts express enclosures are set .5 cubic foot with a built in Port. Add in 1/4 lb of natural wool fiber with half inch of foam on the sides and top and it's pretty much done.. My only complaint is that the base is so deep that the cabinets vibrate when it goes into sub 100 hrz...that's why I said it needs an extra half inch on the inside or outside on the sides to reduce vibration. By the way I've got the worst setup for acoustics with only a foot away from the wall. I'm using mineral wool I bought at Lowe's for sound dampening. Acoustic dampening between the speakers has helped a lot on the wall directly behind the speakers. My Canton Vento 890.2 DC speakers are store bought. Their drivers are not substandard. No...what I'm talking about are speakers under $1000 a pair. Everything I've seen is junk but there might be a few good unknowns out there. Anything worthy starts out at about $1500 a pair and goes up from there for store bought. Maybe some factory direct non name brand etc. Might be had for around a thousand. After hand picking drivers I've got a pretty good sense for what sounds real and mostly uncolored. I'm pretty much a non fan of metal cones, polypropylene cones. The only good props are maybe the one seas makes. I am more into natural fiber cones like paper mixes and wood pulp etc. Why? Because they don't cost $300+ for exotic materials like ceramics to sound really good in a normal sized room. I think Martin logans drivers are OK as metal drivers but they do have some kind of coating on them to tame the ringing and breakup node of the metals. The large tower logans are fairly good but then your starting at $2000 a pair and up. The $700 bookshelf logans I saw were not that impressive. I think they might have a large pair of bookshelf's for $1500 though. |
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Post by garbulky on Nov 12, 2016 11:02:04 GMT -5
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Post by Cogito on Nov 12, 2016 11:07:21 GMT -5
All I can say is that my speakers sound better than the bookshelf speakers at the magnolia room at best buy. It's not even close! The room sound correction plus a bifrost dac are just killing it. What you get in a store bought speaker are substandard drivers. The SB acoustics paper and papyrus drivers are insanely good in the base. A two way crossover is fairly easy to do and if you get fairly close in the crossover room acoustics become much more important than getting a perfect crossover. A third order for the tweeter with a second order on the woofer will get the time alignment fairly close for integration. At first I thought my new dac was a little bright but with acoustic treatment it sounds really good. The parts express enclosures are set .5 cubic foot with a built in Port. Add in 1/4 lb of natural wool fiber with half inch of foam on the sides and top and it's pretty much done.. My only complaint is that the base is so deep that the cabinets vibrate when it goes into sub 100 hrz...that's why I said it needs an extra half inch on the inside or outside on the sides to reduce vibration. By the way I've got the worst setup for acoustics with only a foot away from the wall. I'm using mineral wool I bought at Lowe's for sound dampening. Acoustic dampening between the speakers has helped a lot on the wall directly behind the speakers. Cabinet "buzzing" at any frequency would be a deal breaker for me. Perhaps an internal layer Dynamat might tame that or even a painting liberal coating or two of a rubber coating material like Plasti Dip? |
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Post by gzubeck on Nov 12, 2016 14:34:42 GMT -5
I just found out the Martin logans retail for $1199 for the 6.5s. with quality amplification I bet they sound pretty good for bookshelf's. If I didn't want to build something that's what I'd be looking at. The cabinets are extremely solid for a bookshelf. I would stay away from the 5.25s. I wasn't impressed with those. www.martinlogan.com/motionSeries/models/bookshelf.phpXT35's |
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Post by gzubeck on Nov 12, 2016 14:47:34 GMT -5
All I can say is that my speakers sound better than the bookshelf speakers at the magnolia room at best buy. It's not even close! The room sound correction plus a bifrost dac are just killing it. What you get in a store bought speaker are substandard drivers. The SB acoustics paper and papyrus drivers are insanely good in the base. A two way crossover is fairly easy to do and if you get fairly close in the crossover room acoustics become much more important than getting a perfect crossover. A third order for the tweeter with a second order on the woofer will get the time alignment fairly close for integration. At first I thought my new dac was a little bright but with acoustic treatment it sounds really good. The parts express enclosures are set .5 cubic foot with a built in Port. Add in 1/4 lb of natural wool fiber with half inch of foam on the sides and top and it's pretty much done.. My only complaint is that the base is so deep that the cabinets vibrate when it goes into sub 100 hrz...that's why I said it needs an extra half inch on the inside or outside on the sides to reduce vibration. By the way I've got the worst setup for acoustics with only a foot away from the wall. I'm using mineral wool I bought at Lowe's for sound dampening. Acoustic dampening between the speakers has helped a lot on the wall directly behind the speakers. Cabinet "buzzing" at any frequency would be a deal breaker for me. Perhaps an internal layer Dynamat might tame that or even a painting liberal coating or two of a rubber coating material like Plasti Dip? It's not that it buzzes...you just can feel the cabinet vibrate when it's really putting out the impactful sound. My gut feeling tells me that if I had at least 1 Inch thickness vs. 5/8s thick cabinet it would take it to the house when the speakers are pumping during explosions and such. The rest of the time everything else is just really good. For $65 they are amazing cabinets for the money. |
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Post by yves on Nov 13, 2016 19:16:05 GMT -5
In Germany they can be had for the equivalent of just around $1,535 / pair, and that is including the original LS 850.3 stands (with free shipping on everything). So yeah, absolutely agree. |
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djreef
Sensei
Thoroughly enjoying my Schiit
Posts: 353
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Post by djreef on Nov 14, 2016 6:47:56 GMT -5
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Post by garbulky on Nov 14, 2016 10:39:16 GMT -5
Holy moley you have to post a bigger pic of your setup! I've never seen that config. |
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Post by hawkeye on Nov 14, 2016 16:43:13 GMT -5
Really liked my KEF LS50's, but sold them in favor of Quad ESL 57's.
Down the line I will likely either buy another pair of KEF LS50's...or one of the others I'll list below...my current "interested" list for bookshelf speakers. But maybe you won't like the LS50's enough if you didn't think the R300's were an upgrade.
Scansonic MB-1 (cheaper version of Raidho)
Harbeth 30.1 or 40.1
ATC (pick your model)
I guess these are my contenders so far because I'm not remembering any others!
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Post by ncred02 on Nov 14, 2016 17:13:58 GMT -5
While I have enjoyed my fantastic Wharfedale Jade 3s for about a year and a half, I've got the urge to try something else for a while. My current budget is around $2000 or less (I simply can't justify spending more on a bookshelf system). So far I've auditioned KEF's R300, Monitor Audio's Gold 100 and Martin Logan's Motion 35XT. While all were very nice performers, I wouldn't consider any of them to be an upgrade to the Jades. Two system I would love to check out, but don't a local dealer to try out, are Legacy Audio's Studio HD and Philharmonic's BMR Philharmonitor (Which really intrigues me). I'm hoping a few of you folks have some experience with either one of these or have some other suggestions? I have a pair of Philharmonic bookshelf speakers - the really cheap ones. The trouble with them is they sound so damned good - good enough to replace a pair of Emo ERM-1's! The reason they replaced the ERM-1's is because they can't play as low as the Affordable Monitor - which goes down to (and past) 47hz. And no - they're not as good as the song towers. I'm able to move my 12" sealed sub out of the bedroom now! No more stubbed toes! Did you know that the guy that owns Philharmonic Audio is the same guy who designed the original song towers & crossovers for Jim Salk? Guy's name is Dennis Murphy and he's a real wizard with crossovers and such. He sells the Affordable Monitor from a Parts Express speaker kit - assembles them and installs his own crossovers in place of the PA crossovers. If Dennis can get a sub $250 set of speakers those BMR's should be quite something. I think Salk does his cabinets. If they are anything like the song tower's fit and finish then that's a hell of a deal for $1600. FWIW I've been eying those BRM's too. Nice looking and there is quite a following for Philharmonic Audio over on AVS. I think I'd rather buy a used pair and let the original owner take the depreciation hit. Cant beat Vandys |
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Post by Cogito on Nov 14, 2016 19:05:46 GMT -5
They certainly look interesting. The gloss cherry is beautiful. Do you have any experience as to their build quality? They seem pretty light for their size. If I can find a local dealer, I'll definitely check them out. |
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Post by Cogito on Nov 14, 2016 19:17:31 GMT -5
Really liked my KEF LS50's, but sold them in favor of Quad ESL 57's. Down the line I will likely either buy another pair of KEF LS50's...or one of the others I'll list below...my current "interested" list for bookshelf speakers. But maybe you won't like the LS50's enough if you didn't think the R300's were an upgrade. Scansonic MB-1 (cheaper version of Raidho) Harbeth 30.1 or 40.1 ATC (pick your model) I guess these are my contenders so far because I'm not remembering any others! I did listen to the LS50's a couple years ago as well the the R300. In my VERY humble opinion, the R300s were considerable more dynamic (Expected) and the vocals a bit more accurate. The LS50's imaging was fantastic however. Unfortunately, there aren't any Scansonic, Harbeth or ATC dealers anywhere near me. |
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