Speaker Choice for Cambridge Azur Kit

HI all,
one of my AE109 speakers has came to blows with a playful 5 year old nephew and one of the cones is damaged

Mad

Despite all apologies etc Im still fizzin mad as I now need to buy new speakers.
I had my system singing nice - most recent tweak was to swap out my Nordost Blue Heaven Interconnect for a £40 Linn Interconnect from yonks ago (based on microphone cable and given away with their budget CDPs!)

Honestly the sound just smoothed out yet had more detail and clarity.
I never knew the Nordost was a bit too full-on for my tastes till I tried something else.

SO SPEAKER SUGGESTIONS...

The 109's were over 10 years old and Im sure things have moved on a bit. so what can I get for around £600 wonga?

Room size is about 5x4

Id pay less if there were cheaper options which were on a par with the 109s.
Id like the same room filling solid sound, but with more clarity, soundstaging and tighter bass. Most importantly I sometimes felt I was listening to loudspekers rather than real musicians. Ive heard setups in hifi shops where the speakers just vanished and huge scale music appeared.

That kind of thing?

Floorstanders preferred, but will standmount for a big jump in quality.

What goes well with the Azur kit?


Thanks.
_________________
Cambridge Audio Azur 640C CDP
AE109 Speakers
Cambridge Audio Azur 640A Amp
Cambridge Audio Azur 540R AV Amp
Vann Damme Black 4x4mm biwire Spkr cable
Nordost Blue Heaven Iconnect
Krystal Cables TITAN powercords

 

What about the new Rega R3 or R5?

New Mission M34i?

 

Well even though many on this forum will know I am a devout Von Schweikert fan, having already encountered a system that uses the VR-1 stand-mount with the AZUR amp and CD setup I can safely say that VSA speakers are just too revealing a match for the CA kit.

However, while in my local Richer Sounds last week I noticed they have a set of TDL floor-standers, can't remember the price but I think they were ex-demo finished in maple. I don't have the model number but call the Milton Keynes branch of Richer for more information if interested.

 

I suppose you have investigated getting the driver replaced?

How about the Monitor Audio RS6?

 

Don't forget your home insurance .....accidental damage is a good clean clear claim.

the best lower budget speakers I've heard at any time are the quads 11Ls and there floor stander relatives. Simply stunning very very good for cones. But I'm an electrostatic fan.

 

See here: https://www.audio-forums.com/as-rediect/showthread.php?t=8817

 

also https://www.audio-forums.com/as-rediect/showthread.php?t=9025
or http://forum.hifichoice.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=17738

 

hi gazjam.

why not take a look at the £500 system thread.

one of the reasons i ran it was to give people some good reccomendations on used kit. Plenty of the speakers in the thread would have been 500-700 new..

personal favourites are the absurdly cheap Tannoy 611 and 628, Ruark Talisman II, Epos ES14 if you like a clean sound and Rega Elas.

 

I wouldnt get the Tannoy 611's from your coments about not liking an upfront sound. I had some of these and they were very boxy and bright sounding. I replaced them with MA studio 20's (wonderful speakers) which you could pick up for around £700 but you would soon want to upgrade your amp with them they loved the £3k+ MF NuVista, you would probably never change them, if it hadnt of been for the quad esl988's I wouldnt have.

 

That's not only down to the loudspeakers although some do it better than others. The whole chain has to have those attributes. And then the kit has to be well supported and fed decent mains to really make the system disappear.

Correctly set up, the Castle Conway 3 can disappear if fed from a system that has the attributes of transparency, imaging, stage etc. They will also have no problem filling the room with sound.

The Castles also have a very well judged treble response which is superb for Rock and when your 'relatively affordable' CD player does trip up, they won't make your ears bleed.

I haven't personally heard the Cambridge Azur kit. I've heard it's very good for the money but I don't know what that might equal in absolute terms.

 

Not sure what the Azur stuff's like, but if it's near Rega Planet/Mira quality, you'll find ES14s a fairly dull and frustrating match. '14s are a sod to get sounding awesome, and they'll rip wanting (read, most!) electronics to shreds - my old ones are on a colleague's mid-top Naim rig and they've only started to sound good at that level. Proceed with caution.

Yeah baby YEAH! I replaced aforementioned ES14s with these, and didn't miss much and gained a lot in the context of my system. Elas are a bargain and KICK ASS!

 

Can you get any PMC's for that price? Even the small ones have bass equal to most floorstanders

 

I think thats right Dom/rsand.

Its all a matter of system synergy. I've heard Epos ES11/ES14 sound amazing, absolutely sublime - in the right context, and also heard dual concentric Tannoy 611/628 sounding far better than their price tag would indicate.

Another great bet is the active Tannoy Reveal. I noticed on another thread these things have come down from about £400 to £249. For an active monitor with 2 amps thats not much cash. I certainly think they are as good as a reasonable standmount with a mid priced amp. It would allow gazjam to sell his stereo power amp and get a dedicated pre too.

There are more options than you can shake a stick at really...!

 

I think the Alesis monitor 1 mk2 active are a better buy really

 

Granted a 5m x 4m room isn't exactly massive, but are nearfield monitors really the way to go? You've got to be, what, about a metre or something away from those for them to sound right...

 

Probbly wouldn't want to be more than 2.5m away from them