KeithR's "Dream Speaker" Search

[morricab]

Now you are taking it personally. Better to go listen to Devore and confirm, for you? You will hear they are more transparent to recordings than your speaker.

Based on Stereophile, I owuld have thought the Devores would also be somewhat colored.

 

[morricab]

Peter, that was a little sarcastic dig in that Ked has already had enough experiences to realise Magico is not for him, but he's happy to demo further and confirm further.

Me? If I heard a component that failed to connect w me a maximum of two times, I'd conclude life was too short to try it a third time.

Agreed, and I have heard them literally 10 times I think in the last several years...more than enough to come to a conclusion...also with lots of different gear attached and in shows, shops and homes.

 

[morricab]

*Can* is the keyword here. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition.

As a Ref 3A owner (one of the most minimal crossovers in the industry) I am surprised you don't have a position closer to Ked's on this one. As a former owner of Ref3As, I found them to be more transparent compared to any of the big name brands, which is why I went with them. The Master Control MMCs I had (ancestor to what you have) was gobsmacking with a good SET or OTL (I auditioned them with a Graaf 20 watt OTL) was a new reference for a speaker of that type...anything less I wouldn't have gone with...as my ribbon/electrostat past guided me towards transparency and coherence. Now, I have horns that do those things AND the dyanmics the Ref3As couldn't quite muster. Not easy to find horns that are doing that but they exist...

 

[morricab]

There are many paths to nirvana...

But generally what Ked is saying gets you further than the other way around...I have also been finding that overly complicated horn designs lose something...that is why this BD Swing looks interesting...a two-way three-way (thanks to the coax cd driver). Overdeadening of the drivers, cabinets and energy absorbing crossovers does seem to suck the life out of the sound. It seems to be all in the pursuit of the perfect on/off axis frequency response and 20 to 20 range. Throw the baby out with the bathwater...

 

[morricab]

Not likely as it's not reality...

It's no secret I prefer and own a simple single driver based system but it's not the best at everything. A higher end Magico will destroy any Devore when it comes to playing more complex music and there's simply no way around it.

Why do you think that is? IMD from simpler system gets too high and starts smearing everything?

 

[morricab]

Ked when you changed your direction away from the Devores I thought later that this was good because the 0/96s did play classical in a way but I found them much better suited at smaller music (and jazz ofcourse) and given much of the music that you play I didn’t find this type was their real strength (especially when things swapped up into large scale and complex).

That was also why I suggested the Harbeth 40.2s as they were working beautifully with the SET as well, but on reflection they have quite a complex crossover and definitely don’t reveal differences in recordings as much as the 20.7s... but the PAP horns however very much do and they have just a simple first order crossover with just one cap for the widebander compression driver horn (which I am about to upgrade the cap and resistors in that as well).

How do the PAPs do with big orchestral music?

I have my reservations about Harbeths because of what you mention and also because I saw a video with them being driven by several hundred watts (on the meters of the CH precision amps) and people still being able to stand close to them...this suggests that these speakers have gone well past the point where putting in more power yielded almost NO increase in SPL. That is the very definition of dynamics killer, from my POV. So, maybe they can handle complex music without getting smeared up but they will not trace it dynamically accurately unless played way below live levels and then maybe not because of their inherent noise floor (something we don't talk about much in speakers but it is there nonetheless).

 

[bonzo75]

Based on Stereophile, I owuld have thought the Devores would also be somewhat colored.

If you run them with Shindo, Art's preferred brand, I guess they might. I have never heard that combo though I have heard top Shindo on AN E and tannoy GRF and found that to have a colored sound. Also one differentiation when we say color. There is, to me:
1. A character sound of certain speakers, either due to drivers and cabinets or both. This can be woody, metallic, ribbon like, etc
2. There is the color of creating the constant staging and imaging across records, so it looks like the same Orchestra playing in the same concert hall all the time
3. There is the electronics tonal color, like in Kondo. Usually these will cause instruments to sound similar across recordings.

I am ok with 1 if 2 and 3 don't exist. It is difficult to get past 1, that way everything has a color.

 

[morricab]

Actually, do you not see the relationship between being able to reproduce what's on the recording to transparency to the recording?

Inert cabinets really matter most on complex music, so there's that too. That's part of the reason Magico and similar speakers are so fussy about cabinets. Single driver and wideband speaker cabinets don't matter quite as much as they simply can't resolve complex music to the degree Magico and other similar speakers can.

The truth is a lot of aspects of speaker design are totally blown up and made to be more important than they are for marketing purposes. Without having designed and built and tested a lot of these things it's hard to know what's what. Even if you have, designers tend to take their own experiences as the entirety of possibilities. Larger companies are unlikely to share proprietary info they have worked hard to understand outside of how it can benefit their marketing departments. Listen, that's cool you've heard a lot of gear, but I've actually designed and built gear too. I live in the Denver area, which has no shortage of amazing HiFi companies and systems, and is home to RMAF. I currently own 2 systems that are pretty dang good... so you might want to check your attitude son.

I agreee in some ways with what you are saying. They go to these extents to get certain propertiest that they feel are important but as Ked I think is pointing out, they have also kind of thrown the baby out with the bathwater and the fun and life of the music in pursuit of technical "perfection", which IMO igornes one of the most fundamental aspects...dynamics.

 

[morricab]

I don't agree with anything Ked is posting atm, today. Simple circuits and crossovers equal transparency? Might as well be a flat-earther. Just because there's a lot of evidence (anecdotal) doesn't make it so. If you have a huge swath of manufacturers that make "complicated" things poorly, that isn't causation for all "complicated" things to be bad. And for the record I've never heard a single order crossover that didn't smear some - EVER. Lots of SS gear that was meant to be simple ends up coming across as lacking resolution among other things. Tubes tend to either be "complicated" or simple and taking on plenty of extra character/coloration.

Personally I'd blame the electronics for problems first over "complicated" speakers that measure ok. Although I can say some older Magico's had crossovers that were persnickety. To me it seems like a lot of the dislikes of some speakers (like Magico) fade when you start using electronics like you would for something like the O 96's. The problem is that they often don't translate over well for bass due to lack of power. I could go on forever... I guess my real point is I don't prescribe to these little theories that haven't shown to be true anymore than to just reconfirm someone likes their stereo that isn't something else. I mean, you ever seen what the Pass phono section looks like? I don't anyone really would claim it sounds bad but simple IT IS NOT. The examples don't end.

I'll get to comment in a bit about the review, Keith.

You make a good point about the electronics...which is why I advocted SET even for my electrostats...

 

[PeterA]

A wilson Magico type of set up (and many other such speakers) create a constant stage and imaging (in that room, not across rooms). Constant might be a more extreme word, but I like to hear the different concert hall ambiences. The constant stage can even be impressive on the first record you play, and then gets boring by the fourth (for me, at least). And no, I am not saying I need to spend loads and loads on Pnoe or Tang's system or so to get transparency. I got this with Devore across 6 amps in two different rooms. Very easy. Just change the record and see the change that happens, each time you feel like a fresh concert. None of that constant stage, image style. It feels so much more real. Yes, there is tone color, which is another aspect. For example, tone of piano/violin might be similar across recordings in some applications. Some like audio note or kondo create a very pleasing tone that strikes us in the first recording, but then is very similar across.

This quality of "sameness" across recordings is certainly evident in some systems. You seem to be attributing it to speakers like Wilson or Magico, or to particular electronics. A member here with much more experience than I told me that this sense of "sameness", particularly in soundstage and imaging, is rather more dependent on the cables or the tweaks in a system. I have been playing around with cables and tweaks a lot lately, and am beginning to understand exactly what he means. All the while, my Magico speakers stayed in place and transparency to the recording has been increasing. It's been a rather ear opening period for me.

 

[christoph]

Me? If I heard a component that failed to connect w me a maximum of two times, I'd conclude life was too short to try it a third time.

Same here

 

[spiritofmusic]

Peter, if you're finding you're doubting your upmarket cables and tweaks, you just haven't found the right upmarket cables and tweaks LOL.

Don't forget to consider going sans Vibraplanes under yr Pass monos as well. If you're getting back to basics, stock footers on the floor is where it's at.

 

[spiritofmusic]

And of course, the final act of true audiophile humility, going au naturel on yr system stripped of euphonic tweaks, and seriously a/b'ing yr supremely over engineered Magicos w more humble alternatives like Devores.

I believe there is an audiophile who went from EA MM3's to much less ambitious stand mount spkrs.

 

[morricab]

If you run them with Shindo, Art's preferred brand, I guess they might. I have never heard that combo though I have heard top Shindo on AN E and tannoy GRF and found that to have a colored sound. Also one differentiation when we say color. There is, to me:
1. A character sound of certain speakers, either due to drivers and cabinets or both. This can be woody, metallic, ribbon like, etc
2. There is the color of creating the constant staging and imaging across records, so it looks like the same Orchestra playing in the same concert hall all the time
3. There is the electronics tonal color, like in Kondo. Usually these will cause instruments to sound similar across recordings.

I am ok with 1 if 2 and 3 don't exist. It is difficult to get past 1, that way everything has a color.

Electronics can also make constant space from recording to recording both images and soundstage...one of the biggest problems I hear in gear...

 

[bonzo75]

Electronics can also make constant space from recording to recording both images and soundstage...one of the biggest problems I hear in gear...

Yes agree.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Yep.
Mooks too.

 

[bonzo75]

Yep.
Mooks too.

Tell General his recording collection is worthless then and he should give either that or mooks to me, can't keep both.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Ked, one doesn't tell The General anything. One is just grateful one gets an invite into his life. He's v welcome to keep his lps AND Mooks.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Btw, I don't see any Mook footers under his gear, just the discontinued ebony racks.

 

[spiritofmusic]

I've now heard Mook footers in two systems, mine included, and if anything caused a sameness from one recording to another, it was these.

So Ked, be careful what you criticise in other systems as producing homogeneity if your benchmark is likely doing the same.