Best speakers 100-250K for classic rock
- Thread starter fuscobal
- Start date
The whole "classic rock" definition is nothing more than a radio format that has changed year to year and included more bands and years overtime. It's a contrived format driven by popularity so to me it's meaningless.
WRT reissues not my experience. Frankly the opposite.
Rob
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Finding a good bass amplifier isn't easy. It's a 4-way speaker (3-way passive) and the two 15" speakers with active filters. You need a lot of power to sound really good.Just get a pair of these! The Who used them.
Rob
This one is a ultimate soultion for me
ACCUPHASE A-300 – Der ultimative Class-A-Mono-Leistungsverstärker
Anlässlich des 50.Firmen-Jubiläums hat Accuphase die Mono-Endverstärker A-300 neu entwickelt. Die A-300 setzt konstruktiv völlig neue Maßstäbe in der Class-A-Leistungsverstärker Technologie. In der A-300 Endstufe arbeiten Leistungs-MOS-FETs Transistoren in 20-fach paralleler Gegentaktanordnung...
pia-hifi.de
This is mainly due to the 4" voice coils which are connected in parallel.
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Or something modern like the Steinway Lyngdorf, an active open-baffle speaker system. There are different sizes available for every room size, so there's always something to suit. It will be measured at your home and adjusted to your room''s size. Prices start at €30,000 and end at €500,000. Sounds extemly good for my ears.
steinwaylyngdorf.com
Steinway Freestanding speakers - The world's finest audio systems
Steinway freestanding speakers interact with the room like a piano does, resulting in extremely open and life-like musicality.
steinwaylyngdorf.com
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I would go with a speaker that can move air. Sth with a big woofer and high efficiency - like Goebel Divin Marquis, TAD R1 or Focal Utopia Stella EM.
TAD and Focal can be had used for less than $40k - a fraction of retail of the current models (Stella has been upgraded to EVO, and TAD to TX), offering 95% of the performance. Crazy good value.
Personally, I think I would go with Goebel Divin Marquis and Riviera Audio Labs 50 monos.
TAD and Focal can be had used for less than $40k - a fraction of retail of the current models (Stella has been upgraded to EVO, and TAD to TX), offering 95% of the performance. Crazy good value.
Personally, I think I would go with Goebel Divin Marquis and Riviera Audio Labs 50 monos.
They are incredible. Recently, I listened to a pair of JBL 66000 in a very small room, and they sounded great without any noticeable issues caused by room boundaries. I heard another pair years ago with Mark Levinson electronics, but I wasn’t impressed. The dry character of ML ruins the impressive speed and sonic flavor of the speakers. IMO, the 66000s are great speakers for all kinds of music.Just get a pair of these! The Who used them.
Rob
A little-known gem for R & R and all types of music from Blumenhofer Acoustics, the model 1743. Old-school horn style built for today. 2 15" woofers, 1 12" woofer, and a horn driver in a sizable cabinet. What could be more fun?
I agree with Adam, and let's try and keep this thread consistent with what the OP intended. Adam made the point above about moving air, and with two 6" mid ranges the new version of the Focal Utopia Stella EM EVO fits the bill nicely at $150K list. Used or discounted is less.
I had the Focal Maestro Evo, and they rocked.
I think that the Stella is the sweet spot in the range. Not too big, but can fill a large room, refined sound, great engineering, good looks, nice cabinets, the full package.
You can also biamp them and use different amps on the bass and mid/tweet which is real plus when you are seeking to optimize the sound.
There is also a relatively good market for them if you want to move on after a few years.
Fuscobol, the speaker possibilities are truly endless—your music deserves to be uniquely yours! If you’re curious about experiencing the exceptional VS Ultra 7 speakers in your own home, simply send me a private message, and we will make it happen. You’ll find that your Pass amplifiers will pair beautifully with these remarkable speakers. That said, with the built-in Foundation bass amplifier modules delivering an impressive 800 watts per channel and 94 dB overall efficiency, you’ll have a vast array of amplifier options at your fingertips.
In addition, the Ultra 7s autoformer control for the tweeter, ribbon super-tweeter, and rear-mounted ribbon/horn ambient array ensures they're tuned to your room, and achieving exact preferences is a breeze—no matter your listening space. And the cherry on top? Damon Von Schweikert personally oversees the installation of each pair of Ultra 7s across the United States and Canada. Best of luck. GL
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Duke LeJeune
Manufacturer - Illusio Audio and AudioKinesis
If you haven't done this already, my suggestion would be to compile a "short list" and, if possible, do some traveling to listen. I suggest including at least one or two horn-type speakers and one or two dipolar (open baffle) speakers so that you will have a good idea of whether looking in either of these non-mainstream directions could make sense for you.
A good dipole speaker's secret weapon is its backwave. The backwave has the same spectral balance as the front wave, which is generally not true for the off-axis energy of conventional cone-n-dome speakers. Given a long enough reflection path length (i.e. sufficient distance from the front wall), ime that backwave energy can do a very good job of conveying the "sense of space" on the recording. You might need to reduce the amount of absorption on the wall behind the speakers to get good results with dipoles.
A good horn's not-so-secret weapon is dynamic contrast. Musicians use dynamic contrast to convey emotion, and horns do a better job of conveying dynamic contrast than other speaker types. The relatively narrow radiation patterns of good horns tend to minimize the amount of energy in the early reflections, and it is those early reflections which most strongly compete with the "sense of space" on the recording. So good horns can also do a very good job of conveying the "sense of space" on the recording, though ime they are usually not quite as enveloping as good dipoles.
Among conventional loudspeakers Von Schweikert has impressed me, and it might be because their rear-firing tweeters make a beneficial contribution to both sound quality and spatial quality.
(Disclaimer: I'm a dealer for a dipole brand, and am also involved with "hybrid horn" speakers; that is, speakers with direct-radiator woofers and horns for the upper frequencies.)
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If you want to use up your budget and only want to buy new,, I wouldn’t buy without an audition.
Otherwise many other options available, a good starting point will be large cabinets with large drivers and decent efficiency,.(plus a pair of decent subwoofers if you, or someone can help integrate subs to mains)
I haven’t heard the flagship model, but smaller Ama played clean with good dynamics and output in a large room when I heard them.
I listen to Classic Rock every day in the car. Listening to Classic Rock on my Aries Cerat Aurora Speakers through my Lucas Audio Music Server and Kassandra 2 Ref DAC just isn't the same as listening to just about any other genre of music. The recordings just don't translate. If Classic Rock were my primary listening, I would have ordered Tekton Ulfberht 15s. They are big and super dynamic with slam, and you could save yourself 100's of thousands of dollars.
Duke LeJeune
Manufacturer - Illusio Audio and AudioKinesis
A few additional thoughts for @fuscobal on getting as much useful information as is reasonably possible from the audition process:
1. Use music that you know well and that is representative of what you normally listen to, whether or not it's "audiophile approved." Your approval is the only one that matters.
2. Listen with closed eyes. The less brain power you're devoting to processing visual information, the better you can concentrate on listening deeply into the sound quality and spatial quality.
3. If you like what you are hearing from the speakers so far, this next listening test is usually pretty good at predicting whether they will give you fatigue-free listening over long listening sessions, because sometimes you may not have time for a suitably long listening session during the audition process. It's called the "L.I.A.R." test, and that stands for "Listening In Another Room":
Turn the volume level up louder than normal and walk out of the room. Listen through the open doorway but with no direct line-of-sight to the speakers. All you'll be able to hear are the reflections and their dynamic contrast. If it still sounds good, and still sounds a lot like live music, through the open doorway, ime that is a good predictor of long-term fatigue-free listening. This test will not work if the room has been heavily treated with sound absorption, as that will remove too much of the high frequency energy.
4. If something sounds obviously wrong, give that a lot of weight. One of the take-aways from the controlled blind listening tests conducted by Harman under the supervision of Floyd Toole is this: The most highly preferred speaker is not necessarily the most virtuous speaker; rather, it is the least-flawed speaker.
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