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Please help with speaker choices

Hi all,
Well the room and time has lead me down the road to upgrading speakers. A most exciting time, but alas, filled with choices and no possible auditioning for me.

So I must relie on this communities suggestions and help!!

First the current system:
Nick Doshi Preamp
Nick Doshi modded Lectron JH50
Amazon Referenze TT
Triplanar Tonearm
CDP-Don't have one yet
Focal 1007 Be Monitors-current speakers

Room Size:
21 by 13 with 8ft cellings

Music:
I listen to pretty much everything. Sorry for being so general. In one listening session I may move from Coltrane, to Cannonball Adderly, to Muddy Waters and Johnny Lee Hooker to Lucinda Williams and electric/folk Neil Young. Throw in some Dylan and then move onto the White Stripes, Beck, if I'm real rowdy maybe some Ramones or AC/DC, then come down with some Edith Piaf and a sip of 12 year single malt.

Reason for wantng change:
One is I find this a hobby. For me that means having fun with experimentation. So far I have only owned the Focals.
Two is now that I moved my system against the short wall and facing out to the long part of the room, the monitors seems lacking, like they are too small to fill the space, like it is too much effort. Three is I have nerver had a floorstanding speaker and the prospect excites me. Four is, sitting wise, I can only get about 9 feet near to the Focals. To place them closer puts them right in the middle of the living room. Not really acceptable. At 9 feet, the monitors just not presenting the soundstage I desire. At that distance with monitors, I am just not in the heart of the music.

Also something important to note is I like listening loud, but do not always have that option as my system is in the living room and out of respect for others cannot always listen loud so I must have speakers that offer low volume detail.

My choices so far (more of course welcome)
Sonus Faber Cremona floorstanders
Merlin VSM-Mxe
Verity Fidelio Encore
ATC 20's passive

At the higher end(only consider if HIGHLY recommended)
Verity Parsifal ovation
Sonus Faber Amati Homage

Monitors I might consider
Focal Mini-Utopia Be
Sonus Guarnari Homage

OK, sorry for rambling so much. Obviously I am putting a lot of thought into this. Any input much appreciated!

Peter
mariasplunge
mariasplunge OP
174 posts
 
Oregon, thanks for the input. Yes too lucky I think sometimes. How indulgent are 6-7k speakers? Crazy really.

Oregon, could you explain why you would choose the verty's?

Thahks,
Peter
dan_ed
2,451 posts
 
That should probably say "low impedance". What happens on some speakers is that the impedance the amp sees falls way off when trying to reproduce LF signals. So the amp is forced to try and keep up by supplying more current. If it goes too far the amp clips and that's not good.

My Aerial 10t's are a great example of this. I believe these can fall to 2 ohms or lower and will play down below 20 Hz. You can drive them with 50 watts, but don't turn the volume up much at all. Now, hook up 200-300 watts or more from a high-current delivering amp and they sing beautifully.

It's not easy to tell from efficiency numbers, either. I'm not sure what the numbers are on Doug's B&Ws but I'm guessing they don't drop impedance too much even though they are relatively inefficient.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,333 posts
 
Just a heads-up - take a look at this.

Note the behaviour in the upper mid range from 2Khz to 5 Khz on the plots. Then look at the peak in the impedance plot and the phase behaviour in this same upper mid-range region.
mariasplunge OP
174 posts
 
Shadorne, that is interesting, but what does that tell me. I do note the behavior change but how does that relate to amp choice? Any light on that subject would be great.

Dan ed thanks for clarfying, I think Dougs BW's are 88dB. Could be wrong here though.

From what folks have said, I was under the assumption that the verity line was most commonly driven with lower powered tube amps and the results were fine. Does that graph indicate something different?

Thanks,
Peter
dan_ed
2,451 posts
 
That sounds about right, Pete. The 10t's are about 86. The point is that there is no way to tell from this number alone what happens to the load with respect to frequency. I think the 803's are good to about 30Hz or so, not sure. Anyway, I've heard Doug's a few times and never had the impression that his Lectron was struggling in the least. In fact, it has great bass control with those speakers.
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