Speakers

These are impressions/mini-reviews of some small floorstanding speakers I've heard over the last 6-8 months or so. They include the Dynaudio Audience 72SE, Sonus Faber Concerto Domus, B&W 804S, Fab Audio Brat, Living Voice Avatar, and Acoustic Zen Adagio. The first 3 were auditioned with Class? & Chord electronics, the others with Korato tube amps and Exposure CD players. Part 1. The mainstream speakers. First the Dynaudio Audience 72SE. My first impression was "are you sure this thing isn't broken?" I've heard a Dynaudio before (the Special 25) and I couldn't believe the 72SE could be this much worse, what I was hearing was awful. Guitars sounded muffled …

Once we get into the new home, I'm officially separating the current speaker rig from the living room TV. I'll need some semi-decent audio solution that meets the following: Either sits completely on a slim shelf or has as small a footprint as possible < $1,000, all-in. This includes any necessary amplification or other source-related stuff to get to the end of the signal. Mostly midrange-centric. I don't need a lot of bass... actually less may be preferred. No intention of adding a subwoofer. Interested in a variety of options. Anyone have great success with a soundbar? How about on-wall? (though I don't really care to mess with proper cable man…

So what was the consensus for this -- the question being, what's the best cheapest "totable" speaker dock/pair of actives/whatevs for the iPod. AudioEngine A5's? Quad 12L? Martin-Logan CLX? Bose? I guess the single thing I would miss the most is not distorting at medium volumes in the mid-field. Any 2.1 systems worth looking at that have any decent bass? I'm considering something like this or even ugly like this, but I suspect the latter of a midrange suckout (tweeters and woofers, no mids), and the former of boombox sound (doesn't go loud* enough well). * And by loud, I don't mean party loud, I mean just normal for most other people loud.

I've been looking around for the best speaker amp under $200. The options I've considered (Teac A1D, Cambridge Audio A5, Panasonic A-35R and Denon PMA-255) are: - Out of stock and nowhere to be found anymore for the Teac - Out of stock and UK available only for the Cambridge Audio, and Denon - Nowhere to be found anymore in the U.S. other than from pick-up in Montana for the Panasonic I keep hearing things about NAD. Are there NAD products that are available in my pricerange? The only one that is available online in the United States I believe is the Behringer A-500: http://www.audiolines.com/product.php?productid=12906&cat=0&page=1 Anyone got any ide…

Not sure if this is the right forum, so I apologizes in advance if it's not. I'm in the market to upgrade my old HT receiver, a 5 year old HK something or other. It was bought for around $500 so it's quality is probably not quite up to par with some of the bigger boys. I'm also interested in some of that new fangled room correction technology, as my living room is not completely conducive to good sound quality (cathedral ceilings...). Does anyone have any opinions on Anthem, Integra, or Pioneer Elite gear? I'm looking to spend around $2k and will probably go hear a few of these this weekend. Is there anything else I should be looking at? Separates would be awe…

Visited a local dealer today to audition some speakers before heading off to RMAF. Source component: Marantz DV6001 (DVDP) Amplifier: Marantz SR5003 (A/V receiver) The dealer had a sweet setup, a bunch of speakers were all lined up against the wall and there was an electronic switch panel to switch among them at will. Speakers I listened to: - Monitor Audio RS1 (bookshelf) - Monitor Audio RS8 (tower) - PSB Alpha B1 (bookshelf) - PSB Image T55 (tower) - PSB Image T65 (tower) Scattered impressions: First I'll start by saying I vastly preferred the Monitor Audio RS8 among all the others. It took a while for me to develop the preference, there was a wow fa…

I've been curious about how a radial speaker works and what are its supposed advantages or disadvantages when compared to traditional, forward-firing box speakers. Something about the idea intrigues me, although I've never heard a radial speaker before. More specifically, I'm thinking of about this: http://www.decware.com/newsite/RL15.htm. Interested in this because of its reported synergy with the FirstWatt F1. I was first turned on to Decware through aerius, who posted a link to one of the articles on that site regarding room treatment.

PS Audio Elite Integrated stereo amplifier -- $free Polk Audio Monitor Series 2 speakers and sub -- $50 finding out the PS Audio only has stereo outputs, with no sub output -- $d'oh needing a cheap (CHEAP dammit) solution -- $ask head-case Use the PS Audio to drive the sub and get a t-amp for the speakers?

Some of you might recall me having some issues with my Cicadas just a short time ago; if not here was my comment from a week/few weeks back: I followed the suggestions that were given to me concerning placement (thanks again fellas), and it does seem to be a little better now, but the low-end in particular still is imbalanced with the left side playing more strongly. Well, today I was messing around and happened to peer into the porthole on the right speaker with a flashlight, and this is what I found: This is what the left side looks like: And one more comparison to the bottom of the speaker: ^ Left ^ ^ Right ^ ~…

I am curious about the new F series from Adam. They are supposed to be cheaper than the A series (and still front ported which is nice). http://www.adam-audi.../f5/description

So my parents are looking to upgrade the entertainment room (still using an old 32" tube tv). They've settled on the Samsung 52" A650 model and they asked me to look up what budget receiver to buy. I'm thinking something around $300 (??) would be fine for them. Do you guys have any suggestions? They don't need all the bells and whistles. They just need something simple that works. I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about, especially when it comes to parents who have a hard time managing 2-3 remote controls (2 cable boxes and tv). And yes, I'm going to be buying them a Harmony remote.

https://wyred4sound.com/products/pre-amps/mpre would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this. For the price it looks too good to be true. I've been eyeing on an upgrade on my emotiva dc1 for a while, more so as a preamp vs DAC (so far my DAC usage has been cable tv from the oppo and Apple TV optical for tv/movie purposes). Fully discrete dual differential balanced both on the input and output side, but the kicker for me is that it will take the rca in and perform the balanced output "correctly" to feed my stealth monitors. Below is from the designer commenting in a 6moons review. http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/wyred8/3.html

From another thread: How about speaker amps, are there any speaker amps that follow this design? How about preamps? Is there a corresponding solid state design? Perhaps with MOSFETs?

Well...my computer speakers finally died and I'm looking to replace them with what little money I have left of my college budget. Anyone got any suggestions for relatively cheap, but good sounding computer speakers? I'm not looking for anything fancy. Thanks, Dave

Looks like my long-serving Quads have decided to stop working. I haven’t tried to disassemble the offending one. But there’s definitely been an intermittent issue where it wouldn’t play without power cycling, and that has appeared to turn fatal and now it won’t turn on. I was only able to enjoy these because of the deal I got on them from Todd. So I didn’t know what people have for experience with some of these newer brands/models. I have a pair of Audioengine A2s at work, which needless to say, are several steps below. But with the market flooded with lots of reasonably priced options, does anyone have any recommendations for active monitors? I don’t know that …

Mind blown and this is ESL based speaker coming from the same company that manufactured your computer monitor. http://www.ecinews.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2258:the-benq-portable-electrostatic-speaker&catid=14&Itemid=300690 http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/benq-evolo-first-ever-electrostatic-bluetooth-speaker/

I want to get a modest stereo setup going in my listening room, as well as a couch instead of just an office chair, so that more then one person can enjoy music. Someone over at sh.tv recommended I check out Orb Audio. I'm looking at their Classic Two Stereo Speaker System, and possibly a Sonic Impact T-Amp to drive them. Their tiny footprint is ideal, because the listening area is small, and these would fit well on the front corners of my desk. Has anyone ever heard these speakers?

Does anyone know anything about these speakers? Since they are made by Final Sound, I presume they are inverted ESL, though this model has a 7" alloy woofer handling the low end with the 48" ESL panel for mids and up. There obviously are going to be some issues with reflections, and I bet they are very sensitive to the room, but still, pretty interesting looking. Seen a few good reviews, but from unknown sources.

My McCormack needs some work so I expect to be without it for as long as a month. I was thinking about picking up one of these for $299: Emotiva Audio UPA-2 Two Channel Power Amplifier Anyone have any experience with this model. I know there was a thread discussing another model. I figure, CJ will buy it from me when I'm done as I'm sure he will not have an amp in the next month.

My rig is near my window and it seems that it is subject to some RF interference. My unshielded XLR cables buzzed, and now I suspect that the speaker cable that came with my AudioEngine 2's is picking up some interference. Is there any quick and easy way to shield the cheap speaker cable?

Interesting article on El Reg http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/02/feature_the_future_loudspeaker_design/ We need to talk about SPEAKERS: Soz, 'audiophiles', only IT will break the sound barrier Design, DSPs and the debunking of traditional hi-fi Covers a lot of ground, the importance of time domain accuracy, and the relationship to the human hearing system. Some of the ideas may be applicable to headphones (eh, Tyll?) Author seems to have the credentials. Sound opinions, or just clickbait? (the commentards seem to have bitten) Discuss

I have been trying out studio monitors for the last few weeks now for my office at the bar. I tried the Dynaudios at $500 each but to me they remind me to much of my home rig and are way to much for my use needed. I tried the Event tr8's and either know the have great freq numbers they just don't make the music come out even enough. I tried a few KR or something brand monitors around $500 pair but they sounded to small and well..Small. I decided on the M-Audio bx8a's for the rear ported even sound and crystal clear range. I have them running Balanced from the Dac1 usb and then on to the laptop using Itunes on a external Hard drive. I have Carpet on the walls of the baseme…

I can't seem to send a message -- what am I doing wrong? I'm using Firefox...

I started this on head-fi as well but I thought for the poor suckers that aren't allowed to post on headfi anymore or simply just don't wanna I post it here also So, as title states I'm looking for a replacable amp for the Akai AM-69. The problem is it's broke as it provides the music with A LOT of noise and cracking. Very unpleasant to say the least. We once had it fixed and it worked for a while but it came back again, driving me nuts. Here's the catch: It has 2 coax inputs and 2 optical inputs. 7 line-ins and 3 line-outs. 180watt with 4 ohm and 100 watt with 8 ohm. The rest of the specs I do not have on me now, so if anyone needs to no more, let me know and…

Hi, I've been looking for some speakers for a while. And these popped out. However, my main 2 concerns are: 1. Lifespan. Apparently from what I've read, these speakers don't last long, with the delamination and whatsoever other issues. Frankly I don't know anything about them, but I was just concerned after reading through all the searches that popped out regarding issues with old planars. So how bad is it really? As in, does it really spoil so easily, and require high maintainance? And if so, is it easily repairable? 2. Performance. Now I know this is touchy, but while I've seen some great raving reviews about them, apparently there are some serious hater…