Thought I would start a thread about my latest auditions, what my goals are, etc.
Background:
I have owned Wilsons, Dynaudios, Zu, and now Devores. I have owned Gibbon Xs for 3 years now and really enjoy their sound - open, dynamic, with good tone. They are very amplifier-flexible which I enjoy and have driven them with Quads, DarTZeel, and now Audio Research. Generally speaking, speaker/amp matching is critical to me and after owning Zu and trying over 15 amps on them, I am a stickler on properly driving speakers.
The Devore weakness in my room has always been in the bass - and yes, I was used to sealed bass with Zu courtesy of a class D actively driven module with a downward-firing 12" woofer. My room is 14'x15-18' as I have an angled rear wall. I have the Gibbon Xs around 2.5-3' from the front wall as setup by the dealer and after 6 months of positioning I felt they were perfectly setup for my trapezoid-shaped room. Devore uses a pair of long-throw 9" woofers, so bass gets down well into the mid-20s. I feel the Audio Research was a great pairing as it uses a small amount of negative feedback which controls the woofers much better than my former DarTZeel. But it still can be a little prodigious for my tastes - which is also mentioned as a positive in the reviews - I should also say that I want to try them in a larger room as my guess is this will be much ameliorated (and another audiophile with Gibbon Xs apparently has no such issue in his room).
I'm looking at to see what 2-3x the cost of my Devores (<50k) can provide - and am curious if the various high end cabinets are advantageous to my Devore's solid bamboo.
Room:
As mentioned before, I have a trapezoid room currently but am moving in 2019 - my goal is to find at least a 20' x 15' room. So the ideal speaker will need to fit in a normal sized room. This will likely be an LA rental, but we may purchase an 1800 square foot rancher house in the next downturn and my guess is the room will be similar in size.
Speaker criteria:
I don't like bright sound or anything with "hifi fireworks" that unnaturally presents detail as a red herring. Metal tweeters and ceramic drivers have usually bothered me in prior speaker hunts. I require excellent dynamics and hence have always had an interest in horns - but concerned their negatives may outweigh this area. I don't crave "ultimate transparency" or detail. Basically I'm looking for a big soundstage with excellent dynamics and good tone. I also need adequate bass as I listen to electronica/trip hop/downtempo for a third of my listening. The other two thirds of my listening includes rock/americana and classical - I don't really listen to jazz at all. Tone, immediacy, and presence are somewhat related and one thing Devore does really well. One last thing, as a former Zu owner - coherency is more apparent to me than others. It bothers me when I can hear different instruments out of different drivers or can point to the bass, etc.
Audition list:
Rockport Avior 2
Gamut RS7i
Wilson Audio Sasha DAW
YG Acoustics Hailey 2
Cessaro Wagner
I've narrowed my interest to the list above - I did consider Avantgardes, Voxativ, and some others but ultimately am satisfied with this audition list. Panels don't work for my listening preferences.
to be continued later with my Rockport audition thoughts...
Background:
I have owned Wilsons, Dynaudios, Zu, and now Devores. I have owned Gibbon Xs for 3 years now and really enjoy their sound - open, dynamic, with good tone. They are very amplifier-flexible which I enjoy and have driven them with Quads, DarTZeel, and now Audio Research. Generally speaking, speaker/amp matching is critical to me and after owning Zu and trying over 15 amps on them, I am a stickler on properly driving speakers.
The Devore weakness in my room has always been in the bass - and yes, I was used to sealed bass with Zu courtesy of a class D actively driven module with a downward-firing 12" woofer. My room is 14'x15-18' as I have an angled rear wall. I have the Gibbon Xs around 2.5-3' from the front wall as setup by the dealer and after 6 months of positioning I felt they were perfectly setup for my trapezoid-shaped room. Devore uses a pair of long-throw 9" woofers, so bass gets down well into the mid-20s. I feel the Audio Research was a great pairing as it uses a small amount of negative feedback which controls the woofers much better than my former DarTZeel. But it still can be a little prodigious for my tastes - which is also mentioned as a positive in the reviews - I should also say that I want to try them in a larger room as my guess is this will be much ameliorated (and another audiophile with Gibbon Xs apparently has no such issue in his room).
I'm looking at to see what 2-3x the cost of my Devores (<50k) can provide - and am curious if the various high end cabinets are advantageous to my Devore's solid bamboo.
Room:
As mentioned before, I have a trapezoid room currently but am moving in 2019 - my goal is to find at least a 20' x 15' room. So the ideal speaker will need to fit in a normal sized room. This will likely be an LA rental, but we may purchase an 1800 square foot rancher house in the next downturn and my guess is the room will be similar in size.
Speaker criteria:
I don't like bright sound or anything with "hifi fireworks" that unnaturally presents detail as a red herring. Metal tweeters and ceramic drivers have usually bothered me in prior speaker hunts. I require excellent dynamics and hence have always had an interest in horns - but concerned their negatives may outweigh this area. I don't crave "ultimate transparency" or detail. Basically I'm looking for a big soundstage with excellent dynamics and good tone. I also need adequate bass as I listen to electronica/trip hop/downtempo for a third of my listening. The other two thirds of my listening includes rock/americana and classical - I don't really listen to jazz at all. Tone, immediacy, and presence are somewhat related and one thing Devore does really well. One last thing, as a former Zu owner - coherency is more apparent to me than others. It bothers me when I can hear different instruments out of different drivers or can point to the bass, etc.
Audition list:
Rockport Avior 2
Gamut RS7i
Wilson Audio Sasha DAW
YG Acoustics Hailey 2
Cessaro Wagner
I've narrowed my interest to the list above - I did consider Avantgardes, Voxativ, and some others but ultimately am satisfied with this audition list. Panels don't work for my listening preferences.
to be continued later with my Rockport audition thoughts...
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