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Well, @pennstac used Bing and clicked the link based on a thread snippet, and was actually looking for some speaker names. When I realized where I was, I continued down the thread until I started to laugh. Looking for speakers that sound good at low volume and being told not to trust my ears.
Iām planning a Friday afternoon visit to Overture in Wilmington.
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Iāve had some nice dealings with Overture in the past.
I wonder if a high efficiency loud speaker might be what your after, something that can be driven with just a few watts to a satisfactory level for you (which opens up Class A amps as a possibility) as opposed to a loud speaker thatās going to need hundreds of watts per channel just to make a little squeak?
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Klipsch? Tekton? Others?
Iām curious about the sci-fi looking Tektons, but also suspicious about multi-array drivers behaving weirdly.
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Possibly, something that reaches say around 90 to 93 db for 1 watt in.
Iām a point-source, line-source guy (and dipole driver type guy too); I find the fewer the drivers usually provide for the better imaging and sound-stage and they seem to make dealing with room interactions a bit easier when it comes to loudspeakers. The more drivers and the larger the enclosure usually means sitting farther away to get all the drivers to to blend at the listening position. Of course, the proof is always in the listening soā¦
Will be interesting to learn what @pennstac finds out in his search.
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I have no idea how much youāre hoping to spend but the Buchardt A500 and A700 active speakers both have compensation for low level listening (aka Fletcher Munson curves). I believe anything below 74db they start boosting the bass and treble to compensate for the low volume (lower you go the more they boost), from what Iāve heard this makes them one of the most listenable speakers at low volumes around.
Other than that it seems a lot of high efficiency speakers are willing to bogie at low volumes. I have the Klipsch Forte IIIs and theyāre definitely more engaging at low volumes than anything else Iāve had. Zu and Tekton make some pretty compelling efficient designs as well.
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Iāll see what I see and hear what I hear at Overture. Macintosh makes a line source floor speaker, but itās powered. I wasnāt really looking at a powered model. That means I need to find a place to plug it in.
Iāve heard some of the modern design floor standing Focal, Kef, and I think Definitive, but never got to critically listen. Possibly the lower end Martin Logans, I donāt know. If the Maggie 1.7 fits my room (10.5 x 15 ft) I might bite the bullet and go for that. Itās taller than I really want, would have to re-arrange some art, but thatās not a problem.
Esl-x are bass shy at low volume. Very bass shy.
I suspected as much from the FR specs. My listening time with MLs was back in the Prodigy/Odessy/Aerius days, and they were not bass shy. However, Iāve always seen the issue with MLs being the mating of estat and woofer/sub.
I looked up the Buchart, and I do like the aesthetic. Was not looking for active speakers. Plus, as you allude to, they aināt cheap. The Maggies were good at $1450 per pair. The next level up, the 1.7 are really the top of what I care to spend. Or more than I care to spend.
I had pretty much committed to refurbing my amplifier, which is why I donāt want passive. I donāt think itās to late to put the kibosh on that, but I really think itās worth doing, and it would bother me if I just let it deteriorate. Yes, the alternative might be active speakers and $700 more in the budget. But my brain would annoy me unless I sold the Sansui AU-919ā¦
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Iāve found Harbeth speakers to sound very good at low volumes. I personally own the M30.2 XD model ($6,700), use them in a very small room with a 100wpc class D amplifier and listen at fairly low volumes with complete satisfaction. After having spent and auditioned my way through many speakers (e.g. Dynaudio, Klipsch, etc.) they are by far the best Iāve heard at both low volume and at neutralizing the negative impact of a small listening room.
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For those of you who have the BHSE can you please comment on the volume control - Stepped vs. Alps? There shouldnāt any sonic difference but Iām concerned about the spacing of the stepped control. Itās an extra 1K for the Alps which could go in another direction.
TIA for any responses.
Victor B.
I went with the Alps RK50. This was for flexibility and adjustment granularity.
I believe the DACT-24 equipped version of the BHSE uses the standard-range DACT unit, which would yield the following (dB) attenuation settings from least to most:
0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 38, 42, 46, 50, 60, Infinite (Mute)
Unless youāre using a hot source, with one of the more sensitive sets of electrostatics, and listen unusually quietly, you should be in the 2 dB/step range.
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Read note 3, further up the page you were looking at. It lists the effective (rounded for simplicity) attenuation in dB for each step.
5 dB per step would be unusable, and the graph does not show 5 dB/step until youāre on the coarse end of its range anyway (-40 dB and below). I doubt you usually listen to anything with an amplifierās attenuation set at -40 dB or lower.
Thanks for clarifyingā¦ Much appreciated.
Victor B.
That is almost exactly the layout that I am planning to build. My issue is there are a lot of threads around that emphasize that you must have audiophile quality LAN lines and switches, which can run into a lot of money. I have already invested in Supra Cat 8 LAN cables. My issue is the switch, most of the audiophile level switches will double the cost of my PI2AES setup. Do you have any thoughts on what you are going to do about your network setup and switches that you think would do well in such a setup?
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This is something I will greatly disagree with. You donāt need an audiophile networking switch. Period. End of story.
Thereās absolutely nothing wrong with this for audio:
Getting quality cable is important, but it doesnāt need to be the audiophile, dipped in unicorn pee, blessed by monks, quadruple silver shielded stuff either.
All that audiophile networking stuff is snake oil
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@Doc I bought the Netgear 8-port switch that @ProfFalkin linked to. It works perfectly.
Iām not going to dismiss audiophile switches because Iāve never tried one. Iāll just say that thereās no downside in spending $36 on a Netgear switch.
I did find that the cable from the PI2AES to my DAC was important. It doesnāt have to be expensive, it just has to measure well. I use a 110 Ohm AES/EBU from Silversonic, which sounded better than the much more expensive XLO AES cable that Iād been using previously. As discussed previously, youāll need a 75 ohm coaxial cable for your Chord DAC.
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Well, it turns out that I am running a GS-108 right now, so that makes me feel better to read what you both wrote. One can get some strange ideas in the same forums that quality information can be found. My PI2AES project wonāt be up for a while, so I some time to āclean off some of the snake oil that I have gotten on myselfā in those forums (!) ā¦ and I also agree that the DAC line does have to be good.
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