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Top Speakers for Nearfield Listening in Small Room

Hi, everyone. I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions for top speakers in a small room. I now have an Essence tube preamp and solid-state amp, whic is some very nice gear, SME/Graham analog front end, JL Audio subwoofer, and Wilson Watt Puppy 7 speakers. My issue is that I am in a very small room and have to sit nearfield between the speakers, as well as requiring a relatively small speaker footprint. I am in no way dissatisfied with the sound of the WP7's on rock, jazz, soul, etc, but just wondering what other experiences someone may have had in nearfield listening. For years I had some Essence Super Gem monitors but would find it difficult to give up the bass, dynamics, and soundstaging of the Wilsons. I do have a sub, so extreme bass extension is not paramount, but I don't want to run the sub way up in frequency. Any ideas out there? My budget would be approx $20K. Thank you in advance.
rlawry
nolitan
865 posts
 
although this speaker seems outclassed by the others in this particular topic/forum. I'd like to add in the harbeth HLP3es2. this is a small speaker that sounds big in a small room. Not much bass to speak off but they sound great!
audiokinesis
1,872 posts
 
For extreme nearfield listening, I'd suggest single-driver speakers or coaxial speakers or speakers with the highest crossover around 1 kHz or less, and with a fairly steep slope. For the record, the SP Tech Timepiece mentioned by several here falls into the latter category.

Duke
dealer/manufacturer
james1969's avatar
james1969
345 posts
 
Rlawry, I've been wondering what the Watt/Puppies would be like in a small room?

I currently enjoying the Duettes. The cable/resistor package allows the Duettes to become less affected by surroundings at the expense of the 'size' of the presentation.

The Duettes go low enough for my small space, but I can only dream of how a pair of Watt/Puppies would sound. It sounds like space is no issue for you, you may want to read the latest issue of HiFi+, Roy Gregory is playing around with the Duettes and the Watchdog subwoofer(s). He alludes to getting a pair of Watchdog subs to review with the Duettes in the future.
rockyboy
335 posts
 
Have you ruled out Dale's Intuitive speakers? I understand that he's built a new amp that's incorporated into the speaker base that, together with the speaker, creates some awfully nice music.
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