Which Hi-end monitor for near field listening

Thin midrange with recessed tweeter. Sorry the FS688's arn't what you are looking for :)

The terms thin and thick, of course, mean different things to different people. When I think of thin I think threadbare with a lack of harmonics and overtones. Thick I think bloated, slow and congested. The FA's midrange is far from either.

As Drseid mentioned the Revelator is definitly not forward IMO. Sweet liquid and extended. No harshness or grain. I could see how someone might think it too prominent. At first I thought it too prominent as it extends to ribbon territory and has fantastic detail. After getting use to the new extension and detail almost everything sounds "thin" and rolled off.

Seriously though we all hear different and have different tastes so I doubt if the FS688's would be your cup of tea. Fact is most of the speakers on your list may be too "Forward" for your taste. The Esotar, Morel and Hiquphon used in the Dynaudio, Merlin and Ellis are anything but recessed, rolled off, backward or what ever similar term you want to apply.

I noticed the Tyler linbrooks on your list. With the size of your room and the nearfield listening not sure if the 3 driver Linbrooks would be what you are looking for. You may want to look at the Taylor monitors and have the Seas Millennium substituted for the Revelator. Same midbass as the Linnbrook but in a two way at a substantially cheaper price.

Good luck in your search.

Bw Maxx

I have auditioned the Focus 788's and the new smaller 68SE's. While they can sound musical, I found the smaller ones slightly lacking in low-level detail retreval as compared to my 97 db efficient ribbon-tweeter speaker (I suspect due to the lower efficiency and second-order crossover). Morever, I do not feel the Focus lineup will work with SET- they need more power IMO.

HOWEVER, I DID enjoy he 788's VERY much in a BIGGER room, and at higher volumes- once cranked a bit, the sound very good (and that was with a 25-watt Air Tight ATM-4 believe it or not), and that was an INCREDIBLY musical combo- I could live with it actually.

I find this thread interesting though, as I am moving next week, and looking for a pair of speakers for a second bedroom system with the EXACT same room size- except I want high efficiency for an SET amp...

Marco, I've compared them SR17 with many. The spec and actual don't match. The SR17 doesn't go as deep as the ATCs. I have the passive SCM10s driven with 60 Watt/ch tube amp ( the tube amp sound better than 5 high power SS amps I've tried.) and my friend bought the Silverline so we can compared. He dumped the silverline after 2 weeks. It was very disappointing. We had high hope on the SR17 since many folks give such a high mark. From the spec, they should be very easy to drive and match well with most of the amps. They just sound thiner than what we would like. Also, the lower frequency is just not there. Lack of clarity and no punch. You would wonder where is the bass as it claims 38 Hz vs 55 Hz of ATC. Again, these are just our opinions so you can choose whatever you prefer.

Beheme, I think neutrual sounding mid is the best : )
Most of monitors has good sweet spot for mid. Some just sound less weight than the other. As far as tweeter choice goes, I think the crossover design in these speakers is probably more critical than the tweeter themselves. However, if I have to choose, I'll probably go with silk dome type or ribbon type for the small monitor speakers. They're more easy on my ears.

Any correlation between sensitivity and tonal balance? over the years, I found most high sensitivity speakers I listened to to be rather "thin" but again they were mostly French: JM Lab, Triangle, Cabasse...and other in the 86-89 db to be thicker Sonus Faber, Dynaudio, Audio Physics, Opera...is there any correlation? should I continue my search toward higher sensitivity (92-94db) monitors then...and go silk / ribbon tweeter? Any recommendation that would meet both?