Recommendation for Speaker + Amplifier - Up to $50k total for both

KeithR

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May 7, 2010
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some of the recommendations are hilarious for an Audio Note owner and tube fan. Soulution lol.

if you've been out of the scene for 10 years, I'd pop on over to RMAF this fall and get to hear a lot of systems - your answer awaits there.
 
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Folsom

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some of the recommendations are hilarious for an Audio Note owner and tube fan. Soulution lol.

if you've been out of the scene for 10 years, I'd pop on over to RMAF this fall and get to hear a lot of systems - your answer awaits there.

That is a good idea!
 

GSOphile

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Sep 3, 2017
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I think you should consider a Magico S3 MkII, a better speaker than the A3 and priced new in the same ballpark as a new WP8 and its successors. An outstanding SS amp with tubelike sound characteristics is the Luxman M-900u. Both of these have limited used availability. If bought new, they'd be under your $50K limit MRSP.
 

Pb Blimp

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Oct 30, 2017
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The Raidho's are the only ones listed here that are more directional in the tweeter. The type of tweeter simply has a more narrow dispersion. For that reason it's the only one I'd recommend in your narrow room. And this is despite the fact that I like the E3. Thing is, I love it not in cramped room. So I still would take other speakers over them in your size room. To be specific everything but the Lyra that I named has larger mid/bass drivers so they they will be more directional on top of the tweeter directionality. The Lyra still has a lot of important controlled directivity.

I'm opposed to these amps because they don't fit your appreciation for no to low feedback:
Solutions

Hegel H360


Amps that do fit what you like
:
KR V900
Atlas Sig Stereo
Vitus SIA 025

Cyrill does his negative feedback very different than most. I was a negative feedback hater until I got a hold of the Soulutions. They work exceptionally well with Raidho. Either Michael or Lars used them for a while before the Aavik days.

From JV:

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/soulution-711-stereo-amplifier-701-monoblock-amplifier-and-725-full-function-preamplifier/

Of course, some of us (at least some who go back that far) remember those Japanese solid-state amps from Sansui and others that also boasted record-low THD figures—but sounded like crap. The trouble was that to achieve such stellar specs the Japanese engineers had to ladle on so much global negative feedback that their amps were virtual TIM (transient intermodulation distortion) and SID (slew-induced distortion) generators. Feeding back the signal from the output in order to compare it to the signal at the input (and thus fix any errors that may have accrued as it made its way through the circuit) works fine if that feedback process is instantaneous, but feedback is a disaster if the amp takes too long to make its corrections. After all, the musical signal coming into the amplifier doesn’t hold still for a portrait; it is constantly changing; and if too much time elapses (and we’re talking nanoseconds here), the signal that the feedback circuit is comparing at the output is no longer the same signal that is being seen at the input. Think of it as a worst-case “jitter” scenario, albeit in the analog realm. Ever since the “specs wars” of the late Sixties, the received wisdom about solid-state has been that negative feedback is a bad thing—only to be applied sparingly and locally—while shorter signal paths and fewer parts are good ones.

With its 7 Series electronics Soulution turned this conventional thinking on its ear. In concert with the company’s owner and CEO, Cyrill Hammer, Soulution’s engineers decided that it wasn’t feedback itself, but the speed at which the feedback loop operated that was the problem.
As I’ve already noted, to eliminate the time-related distortion, graininess, and edginess that feedback engenders, you have to make those feedback loops correct errors instantaneously. This means that circuits and power supplies must operate at incredibly high speeds (which translates into incredibly high bandwidths) and with very high precision. Forgetting about shorter signal paths and fewer parts (the 710 amplifier used over 3000 components!), Soulution found ways to do this very thing, reducing propagation delay times (the amount of elapsed time it takes to correct a signal via feedback) to 5–10 nanoseconds (billionths of a second), where big solid-state amps typically had propagation delay times of 1–5 microseconds (millionths of a second). This thousand-fold increase in speed allowed for a huge increase in local negative feedback (and a drastic lowering of THD levels), without the usual price paid in time-domain errors.

The measured results of Soulution’s ingenious, high-speed, high-local-feedback circuit were phenomenal. In the 710 stereo amp, for example, THD was well below 0.0006%, signal-to-noise ratio well above 108dB, channel separation an astounding 86dB, damping factor greater than 10,0000, slew rate 330V/ns, while power bandwidth went from DC to 1MHz. (The monoblock amps measured substantially better!)

The sonic results were just as astounding. Suddenly you could hear…everything, and hear it with unprecedented clarity, speed, and neutrality.

I will never forget my first listen to the Soulution 710 stereo amplifier. It just so happened that, at the time, I was using what remains the most finely detailed transducer I’ve reviewed, the then-brand-new MartinLogan CLX electrostats. In concert, that amp and those speakers set a standard of transparency and resolution that had never before been approached and has never since been equaled in my system. The sheer number of previously inaudible details about the performance, the music, the venue, and the engineering they brought to light on record after record—and these were records I thought I knew by heart—was simply mind-boggling.
 

Pb Blimp

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Oct 30, 2017
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some of the recommendations are hilarious for an Audio Note owner and tube fan. Soulution lol.

if you've been out of the scene for 10 years, I'd pop on over to RMAF this fall and get to hear a lot of systems - your answer awaits there.

Ya he didn't have his system listed when I commented (Post #5). It would have helped.
 

asiufy

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Jul 8, 2011
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I've been recently blown away by the Air Tight ATM-1S on our Wilson Alexia Series 2. Amazing performance, and it did play sufficiently loud, in spite of the 36W. It did need the gain from the REF 10 preamp, but it was gorgeous overall.

So, that amp + Sabrina/Yvette, or a used pair of Sasha/Alexia.


cheers,
alex
 

Ron Resnick

Site Co-Owner, Administrator
Jan 24, 2015
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I suggest Rockport + Absolare solving for $50,000.
 

andromedaaudio

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I d say, if you really want the best , have a optimal room built first , and drag in the Gear later.
20 k on the room 30 on Gear , even your current Gear might sound much better, although its Gear designed towards certain kinds of music i agree
 

audioguy

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Can't recommend a specific set of speakers but I might suggest something that is more efficient (the recommended JBL's would work) for home theater use. I have a friend with Magicos who uses his room for both music and HT, and for music it works great but gives up (for my ears) too much for HT (dynamics), specifically action/scifi movies where things like car crashes/gun shots/explosions occur. Of course, if your primary focus is music, you can ignore what I suggest.
 

microstrip

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I've been recently blown away by the Air Tight ATM-1S on our Wilson Alexia Series 2. Amazing performance, and it did play sufficiently loud, in spite of the 36W. It did need the gain from the REF 10 preamp, but it was gorgeous overall.

So, that amp + Sabrina/Yvette, or a used pair of Sasha/Alexia.


cheers,
alex

Used Alexia I's are currently a bargain - many users changed to the new improved model and the market was filled with them, but they are disappearing fast. IMHO the Alexia is the kind of speaker that sounds much better than it should, and makes us feel guilty for spending more - I owned it for a few months before the XLF's.
 

asiufy

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Used Alexia I's are currently a bargain - many users changed to the new improved model and the market was filled with them, but they are disappearing fast. IMHO the Alexia is the kind of speaker that sounds much better than it should, and makes us feel guilty for spending more - I owned it for a few months before the XLF's.

I agree. We still have a pair of Series 1 in Galaxy Grey, in great condition.
 

andromedaaudio

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For 50 k you can buy unbeatable Gear imo.
What i would buy is a used pair of zanden 9500 Amps 90 Watts , magico v 3 zanden 3000 .
With that Gear you can beat anything of similiar system size .
Spending more on a system that size is Just magazine hyped. BS in my view
 

sheppard

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May 18, 2016
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Ya he didn't have his system listed when I commented (Post #5). It would have helped.

Your recommendation to consider Soulution was just fine and appreciated. I'm not married to any particular technology or design and specifically mentioned even before I listed my current system that I would like the low maintenance of solid state if I could be satisfied by it's sound. Your stated previous dislike for negative feedback (if indeed that is the issue) and how the Soulution has addressed it is precisely what I'm looking for.

This thread is generating a long list of things for me to look into which is great as it's just the first stage of the process. The more challenging part will be narrowing things down and creating a short list to audition. I'll want to consider at least one solid state amplifier - I have a theory that at lower price levels, tubes are less offensive than solid state, but once one starts getting to higher quality solid state, those unpleasant solid state artifacts start being addressed properly.
 

sheppard

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May 18, 2016
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Northern California
I d say, if you really want the best , have a optimal room built first , and drag in the Gear later.
20 k on the room 30 on Gear , even your current Gear might sound much better, although its Gear designed towards certain kinds of music i agree

I appreciate the suggestion. However, I'm renting my home and your suggestion to spend 20k on the room actually translates into spending millions on a home where I live. :eek:
 

asiufy

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I'd just like to say that, to my ears, Soulution is a high negative feedback design, and it does sound like one.
 
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DaveyF

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Jul 31, 2010
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I appreciate the suggestion. However, I'm renting my home and your suggestion to spend 20k on the room actually translates into spending millions on a home where I live. :eek:


That's the basic problem for a'philes in more expensive locations. The room is by FAR the most expensive component of the whole system. In many cases, that room can easily add up to millions.

Lsat week I visited again a dedicated room on the ocean bluff, this room is rumored to have cost $10Million to construct. That's just for the room, doesn't take into consideration the rest of the house...which was well over 60K Square feet! I suspect that $50K is what it costs to run the place for less than a month. Just to get some perspective, LOL.:eek::rolleyes:
 
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Folsom

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All of that is EXACTLY why I'm recommending speakers that makes the room much less important. It's narrow, and you have to deal with that fact no matter what you do.
 

andromedaaudio

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That's the basic problem for a'philes in more expensive locations. The room is by FAR the most expensive component of the whole system. In many cases, that room can easily add up to millions.

Lsat week I visited again a dedicated room on the ocean bluff, this room is rumored to have cost $10Million to construct. That's just for the room, doesn't take into consideration the rest of the house...which was well over 60K Square feet! I suspect that $50K is what it costs to run the place for less than a month. Just to get some perspective, LOL.:eek::rolleyes:

Picture would be Nice??
 

Dthagerty@aol.com

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I, too, have never found a SS amp I could live with. So I feel your pain!

VAC amps and Magico speakers are a wonderful combination. 2 200iQs, run as monoblocks, and your favorite Magico speaker will put a smile on your face. Or start with a single stereo 200 iQ, get as much speaker as you feel you need, and get a 2nd 200 iQ later if you feel the need to upgrade.

I would also advise having a budget for top-flight cables. You will definitely be able to appreciate differences in cables with this level of equipment.
 

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