I had the ESL 63 for some years...but i sell them because i come to the conclusion that i was hearing the speakers not the system...Bill Fitzpatrick said:
They sound about the same with any of my amps...not a good sign...
Nice...but short in resolving power...🙂
Jim85IROC,
It did happen that I have one pair of Source Technologies speakers, model 610. Nice red cherry finish, black gloss piano on the back. Good drivers and cabinet. They weight about 70 each. and they sound like a dream, even with my simple tube buffered gainclone. 😀 I'm using 10' pair of Kimber in biwire combination 4TC for highs and 8TC for bottom so total lenght is 20'. Before chip amp I was using Sonic Frontiers SFS-40 tube amp and didn't like it almost at all.
Anyway I agree with some of you that Sonus Faber is lifeless and maybe dry. Good with classical but with rock made me sick. I remember that once Thiel just killed me with it's passive woofer. It might be the small room they were in and/or rest of the system. Dynaudio are good but not with Sony receiver. Highs were itching my ears. I tried NHT's some high model with my system and it was obvious my gainclone had no kick. Speakers were playing like small trumpets.
I think that first of all it's all matter of taste and everyone's definition of good sound. However on the other hand it's said that audio systems are supposed to reproduce the naturalness as far as possible. Really hard unification of all systems. Designs could be very different. Talking about speakers I mean of course driver, cabinet and crossover. Epos for example in their m12 uses only one passive element in their crossover to achieve "audio nirvana". Capacitor on tweeter. Low-mid driver is directly connected to binding post and made in special way which allows mechanically roll off the upper frequency range. Personally I love that solution it sounds great but I didn't like the highs. They used metal dome tweeter - too sharp. Other manufacturer to make their speaker sound also good, uses very complicated crossover. Sometimes I don't get it. The point is that often creation of your own "that sounds good" is based on listening to speakers made according to manufacturer's definition of good sound. I like Source Technologies speakers or should I say I agree with their definition of good sound. If not ... what is DIYAUDIO for !!!!
It did happen that I have one pair of Source Technologies speakers, model 610. Nice red cherry finish, black gloss piano on the back. Good drivers and cabinet. They weight about 70 each. and they sound like a dream, even with my simple tube buffered gainclone. 😀 I'm using 10' pair of Kimber in biwire combination 4TC for highs and 8TC for bottom so total lenght is 20'. Before chip amp I was using Sonic Frontiers SFS-40 tube amp and didn't like it almost at all.
Anyway I agree with some of you that Sonus Faber is lifeless and maybe dry. Good with classical but with rock made me sick. I remember that once Thiel just killed me with it's passive woofer. It might be the small room they were in and/or rest of the system. Dynaudio are good but not with Sony receiver. Highs were itching my ears. I tried NHT's some high model with my system and it was obvious my gainclone had no kick. Speakers were playing like small trumpets.
I think that first of all it's all matter of taste and everyone's definition of good sound. However on the other hand it's said that audio systems are supposed to reproduce the naturalness as far as possible. Really hard unification of all systems. Designs could be very different. Talking about speakers I mean of course driver, cabinet and crossover. Epos for example in their m12 uses only one passive element in their crossover to achieve "audio nirvana". Capacitor on tweeter. Low-mid driver is directly connected to binding post and made in special way which allows mechanically roll off the upper frequency range. Personally I love that solution it sounds great but I didn't like the highs. They used metal dome tweeter - too sharp. Other manufacturer to make their speaker sound also good, uses very complicated crossover. Sometimes I don't get it. The point is that often creation of your own "that sounds good" is based on listening to speakers made according to manufacturer's definition of good sound. I like Source Technologies speakers or should I say I agree with their definition of good sound. If not ... what is DIYAUDIO for !!!!
I dont buy speakers, i build horns and TQWT.
I had before my present Fostex Fe206e drivers a set of Fe-168e sigmas.
Fe-168e,want to talk bad, and overpriced, they have a 10 db hump at 7.5 Khz and another at 10Khz that on some material was acually painful to listen to.It actually hurt.I tried notch filters and the life just went out of them.
I will take the 206e any day.
ron
I had before my present Fostex Fe206e drivers a set of Fe-168e sigmas.
Fe-168e,want to talk bad, and overpriced, they have a 10 db hump at 7.5 Khz and another at 10Khz that on some material was acually painful to listen to.It actually hurt.I tried notch filters and the life just went out of them.
I will take the 206e any day.
ron
Hi.
I like Tom Petty. But if his voice sounds "nasally" on some given audio system I might consider this a testimony to said system's fidelity.
Joel
I like Tom Petty. But if his voice sounds "nasally" on some given audio system I might consider this a testimony to said system's fidelity.
Joel
Don't you just hate that? It's always premium veneer or polished layers of wood or something, and all those gimmicky extras cost a lot more than upgrading to a much better set of speaker drivers.analog_sa said:
Not sure if I can agree there. What's life?Nielsio said:
I don't think that efficiency has anything to do with it. I get the feeling that sometimes high efficiency gets quoted as a mitigating factor when many other things about the speaker are bad. An inefficient speaker could reduce the performance of an amp because it has to be operated at a higher volume setting for the same loudness. Therefore with a class-AB amp the dynamic range of class-A operation is lower when using a relatively inefficient speaker, but that's not the speaker's fault.
I do agree about the big passive crossovers not being such a great idea. Huge air-cored coils for good radio reception, and enormous high ESR capacitors, huh! Have these people not yet discovered semiconductor technology? I'd bet some of them work out optimum box sizes using valve-based calculators, for a fully "analogue design" too. 🙄 😉 These days there's no excuse to avoid multichannel amps and active crossovers.
I had the opportunity just recently to hear a 1960's 8.5" woofer. It had a cast metal basket, yellowish-orange spider, straight-profile paper cone, and a nice soft rubber surround. The only big difference between it and today's woofers was the big and tall AlNiCo magnet. And it sounded just terrible, whether in a box or on an open baffle. Not sure about the magnet, but the mind boggles that manufacturers still make drivers very similar to that one. Maybe paper-coned/standard pulp-coned speakers should be banned?
CM
Well regarded speakers I didn't like:
Just about anything with a port. I listen for a little bit and then the bass and/or mids start to sound like the speaker is at the end of a hallway. I have picked this out listening to speakers I had no idea what they were or how they were made. It would dawn on me, "Hey - I bet these speakers are ported."
I worked in a high-fi store. We had one room that had good days and bad days. On bad days, everything sounded dead, lifeless, poor or at least over priced. On the good days, things just came alive in that room. We tried to identify what variable(s) was causing the problem, but never did.
Aud_Mot
Just about anything with a port. I listen for a little bit and then the bass and/or mids start to sound like the speaker is at the end of a hallway. I have picked this out listening to speakers I had no idea what they were or how they were made. It would dawn on me, "Hey - I bet these speakers are ported."
I worked in a high-fi store. We had one room that had good days and bad days. On bad days, everything sounded dead, lifeless, poor or at least over priced. On the good days, things just came alive in that room. We tried to identify what variable(s) was causing the problem, but never did.
Aud_Mot
I went to a hi-fi show in EdinBurgh, Scotland a few years back, many, many well known brands there, I enjoyed myself immensely.
The most expensive setup there was a pair of Wilson WATT / Puppies, Krell monoblocks, connected together with Black Pearl cables. To me it sounded like a midi-system. Very clinical, stark presentation.
To be fair it did play very loud, very cleanly, and the dynamics of the system shocked me, but no musicality at all...
Adrian
The most expensive setup there was a pair of Wilson WATT / Puppies, Krell monoblocks, connected together with Black Pearl cables. To me it sounded like a midi-system. Very clinical, stark presentation.
To be fair it did play very loud, very cleanly, and the dynamics of the system shocked me, but no musicality at all...
Adrian
jewilson said:
Before i make my next statement... a hifi is a system, everything is important, and synergy can play a huge role, but within that context it is my belief that the speaker is the least important part -- sure it is the most colored & has the biggest FR deviations, but everything in front is more important.
That said i've heard many a big buck speaker (with a good front end) that suck, and many a budget speaker sing... there are many, many more speakers that chomp than not, and there are a lot of decent drivers in boxes that just don't work.
dave
be nice if this gear was auditionable around where i live.
http://www.avplaza.co.kr/ossb2/Root/avplaza/pro_cinema.htm
http://www.avplaza.co.kr/ossb2/Root/avplaza/pro_cinema.htm
I totaly disagree with this statement. And more, i would say that the speaker is the most important component.... Well let me explain what i think of this....
All depend on the goals you want to achieve. For most "normal people", spending 1000$ on a speaker is crazy. Normal people have a Sony Mini-Stereo or a 20 years old amp with 20 years old speakers and stuff like that. These are 90% of the people I meet in real life. So when i bring my 800$ DIY speakers and plug them in the small onkyo shelf system, well the sound is VERY much better than with the crappy little speakers. Much better than if you plug the crappy little speakers in a High $$$ amp.
In most systems that people have at home, the speaker is the weak link (by far). This is why I say that speakers are the most important element of the audio chain. And i'm not even talking about distorsion and resonance
F
Ever listen to a speaker with a great reputation and hate it?
Yes, happens alot.
DIY is the way to go 🙂
Yes, happens alot.
DIY is the way to go 🙂
I remember when I was fresh into town where I live and I wanted a new set of speaker. I went to listen to a pair of Dahlquist DQ-8, which had pretty decent reputation, which according to the salesman were very good indeed. I listened for a while and started feeling worse and worse due to heavy distortion in the highs. Even female vocals would distort and the experience was awful. Other than that the speakers were not bad. The salesman could not hear it and looked at me like I was stupid. Just a few weeks ago I met a guy who designs speakers who was very familiar with those problems and he had experienced exactly the same thing. Early metal domes?
Well as far as i can see is it takes a synergy between the source/amp/speakers/room to get the best sound.
On another note, about 3 years ago i built my first TL before that it was nothing but BR and sealed and aperiodic. The sound of the TL amazed me and even though i have moved onto horns i still think that (IMHO) a properly designed MLTL or TQWT sounds better than what i was building before.
One of the problems with commercial speakers is the appearence/price factor weighs more than the performance factor until you get to " high end" whatever defnition you care to hang onto that.
ron
On another note, about 3 years ago i built my first TL before that it was nothing but BR and sealed and aperiodic. The sound of the TL amazed me and even though i have moved onto horns i still think that (IMHO) a properly designed MLTL or TQWT sounds better than what i was building before.
One of the problems with commercial speakers is the appearence/price factor weighs more than the performance factor until you get to " high end" whatever defnition you care to hang onto that.
ron
I agree completely. I just don't think the difference in sound from amp A to amp B is anywhere near as big as the change in sound from speaker A to speaker B. Granted, if you don't have a clean signal for the speaker to reproduce, you can't expect much, but it's hard to argue that even mainstream amplifiers provide a signal that's very clean compared to the massive amount of waveform distortion every single loudspeaker makes.gary f said:
Like in my case... I have a Denon AVR-1801 receiver and a pair of Boston Acoustics T830s. Dropping $10k on a high-end preamp and receiver isn't going to have anywhere near the effect on sound quality that buying/building a considerably better pair of speakers will. Only when I've wrung all I can out of my loudspeakers would I consider major changes to my amplification.
Originally posted by Nielsio
Having said that, I just removed my Seas kit speakers' (2-way) 2nd order x-overs, and am running the mid/bass FR and the tweeter from 5uf of capacitor... Possibly the biggest upgrade the system's ever had in many/most ways - hugely exciting transients and snappiness, natural liveliness, not artificial and harsh. So I wholeheartedly agree that passive x-overs can be very degrading, and rob the music of it's freshness/vitality. (or was it all just that my x-over point shifted up by about 2.5khz...?)
Interesting then that so many people appreciate ATC speakers as some of the very best money can buy, and they are typically very inefficient, and usually 3-way. You can only generalise so much 🙂
Having said that, I just removed my Seas kit speakers' (2-way) 2nd order x-overs, and am running the mid/bass FR and the tweeter from 5uf of capacitor... Possibly the biggest upgrade the system's ever had in many/most ways - hugely exciting transients and snappiness, natural liveliness, not artificial and harsh. So I wholeheartedly agree that passive x-overs can be very degrading, and rob the music of it's freshness/vitality. (or was it all just that my x-over point shifted up by about 2.5khz...?)
Jim85IROC said:
I think the speakers you listened to where Tom Petty was nasal sounding were the more accurate sound reproducing speakers. I've met him that's how he sounds
. That's not true. But it might be possible you might have liked the way he sounded on other speakers because of the lack his actual nasal voice, no?- Status
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