Speakers s/h up to about £800 - recommendations please

Hello, I'll introduce myself and ask a question if I may...

I've got an AV system in a converted garage.

Since having a dedicated room, I find I'm enjoying 2-ch music more and more. I'm looking for recommendations for secondhand speakers in the £300-£800 price range.

I prefer the thought of secondhand kit because it seems better value, mid-end speakers don't seem to have changed that much over the years and if I don't like them, I probably won't lose much selling them on. I prefer the thought of that against dealer demos within rooms that sound nothing like my own.

I currently have a pair of Linn Index II's on ku-stone stands and a particularly clean and tunefull (imho) SVS active subwoofer http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_9_4/svs-25-31-pci-subwoofer-12-2002.html

For my taste in music, CD's I've been listening to;
Jamiroquai, Stevie Wonder, Dire Straits, Macy Gray, Seal, Morcheeba, Dido, Craig David, Justin Timberlake, Robbie Williams, Sheryl Crow, U2 and Sting, oh and Aimee Mann.

I think I'm looking for more mid/mid-bass clarity and enjoyment. The "follow the tune" in Linn speak. My technical head knows I've got a 250Hz trough in the in-room response and that the Index's could be considered a little bright.

I also have another pair of Linn Index II's as rear speakers, although for AV surround front to rear identical voicing doesn't appear to be as important to me as I thought it would, so I'm not particularly tied to the Linn brand technically, although I like the thought of it. It's my assumption that with 5.1 channel music releases becoming more common and better made that 5.1 channel music may become more the norm long-term, but let's face it, I really enjoy 2 channel and have hundreds of CD's so that's what I'll want to get the most use of. I find it strange sitting on-stage with the performers with a piano behind me, plus the room gives me a good enough depth and rear acoustic with 2-channel any way.

This is currently driven by a relatively honest 125W/ch Denon A10SE THX Ultra AV amp (as confirmed by the late great Bob Tomalski review) which is relatively good with music for the breed, and a Denon 2-ch POAT-10 THX Ultra power-amp of similar spec and quality, so I think I'd be ok with reasonably difficult to drive loads. I'd one day like to replace these with high-end pre/power but frankly it's so good, I think I could realise a big speaker upgrade before tackling the amplification.

I guess I'm saying, I buy in to the activ, bi-amping ideas and will probably go that way in the near future.

I'm also going to hear some BlueSky SAT 6.5 active (bi-amped internally) monitors http://www.abluesky.com/p_s_gb/p3s1s1.html in a few weeks time, which would cost the upper limit of my budget for a pair, including the power sockets and long audio cables I'd have to run where I currently have bi-wire speaker cables. They would never require or facilitate a crossover or bi-amp upgrade though! Probably a good thing financially, long term!

The room itself is relatively good acoustically, having a soundproofed wall where the garage door is, although the front main speakers do have to go near the conrners, each side of the 7ft projection screen. I may also add some Auralex LERND bass traps in the corners and Wedgies or the like on some of the walls or something similar to deaden the reflections a bit more at some time.

So, your experience and comments would be appreciated.

thanks and regards,
Rob.

 

For £800 speakers you might try Dynaudio 1.3 mkII. Although small in size don't be put off cos with the right amplification the blow many a good floor stander away. And they sound sublime. But they need power. They can also be quite difficult to find as most owners tend to hold on to them - but you never know!

Bobbybrown

 

Hi Rob,

Welcome to the forum.

As a source first believer, personally, I think you may not be getting the best bang for the buck by spending £800 on some speakers. I suspect that all they would do is highlight deficiencies further up the chain.

What are you using as a source?

Cheers, Robbo

 

If you like the idea of going active in the future, and like the linn sound a second hand pair of Linn Keileigh/Kaber for about 300 ish might not be a bad bet. I like them a lot for that sort of money.

Youd have money to look at your CDP then like Robbo said. Unless its shit hot of course!!!

 

Thanks for the warm welcome and responses guys.

I didn't mention my source, because, well it's a little unusual for a hifi source.

It's a dedicated quiet PC with an m-audio Audiophile 2496 soundcard, output over digital S/PDIF. Urgh, I hear you say!

Technically speaking, I rip all my CD's to hard disk in lossless Monkey's Audio APE format (a bit like meridian lossless packing) and play using Foobar2000, a fanatically high-quality designed piece of software.

On playback, this upsamples to 24-bit and optionally resamples to 88.2 or 96 KHz, again like the Meridian kit does. It also includes a "kernal streaming" feature to avoid a "everything to 48KHz bug in Windows" that effects most PC CD replay.

I've read a few good comparative reviews against reference quality transports and one inconclusive one against. To my ears, it is sublime.

While I'm writing about it, Foobar can also pre-calculate average listening levels per album using a feature called ReplayGain, which foobar adjusts for during playback, so compensating for the dynamic range compression and louder sound of modern pop transfers against older or classical stuff. Oh and it's remote controlled, so the projection screen is usually turned off when listening.

Thanks bobbybrown,
The Dynaudio 1.3 mkII's sound interesting, I'll try to find more out about them.

Thanks Bottleneck,
To answer your question, I'm not quite sure it's shit hot source!, never had the chance to compare to a real reference transport. It definitely gives the smoothest, most tuneful and pleasent CD sound source I've ever heard through my kit. It's the only digital source that doesn't make my Deacon Blue CD's sound harsh!

I've not heard of Keileigh's, is that a semi-translation of Keilidh? I have been given a recommendation separately for Keilidhs, although I've read they can sound a little plain and are a pain to place in-room. They can be converted to Activ with bi/tri amping which apparently improves them a lot, as well as upgrading the original tweeters, but their history and revisions doesn't seem to be documented well.

I've been told Kaber's might be too much without a big power-amp or bi/tri-amped in Activ configuration. What are your thoughts?

Thanks again for your input.
cheers,
Rob.

 

The Dynaudio Contour 1.3MkIIs are an excellent speaker if I may say so - why else would I have a pair?

FYI, they've been superceded by the Contour 1.4 so you'll only get s/h or ex-dem ones. They used to cost £1200 new but s/h or ex-dem you shouldn't have to pay more than £600 for a pair now.

They are relatively tricky to drive though. 89dB and 4ohms so you'll need an amp with a bit of welly :MILD:

Michael.

 

Yeah thats the model! I just cant spell these scottish words keil...whatever!!

They are relatively easy to drive, and like the kabers you can make them active later if you want. They sound great too.

The remaining 500 of your budget would be better spent elsewhere would be my initial reaction.

Its tempting to have high end speakers on the end of mid-priced hifi, but it rarely gives the result you would hope for IME. The source and amplification are rarely up to the job when the budget is split this way.

In your case, Im unfamiliar with the switching options of your AV amp.

If you managed to find a second hand pair of active kei's or kab's then you could perhaps just use your AV amps power amplification for centre and rear channels, and the active modules would take care of the all important front two channels. That would seem very sensible to me.



Chris

 

Hmm, I've done a bit of review reading and the Contour 1.3MKII's appear to be quite something special.

My concern is, would my POA-T10 power-amp or A10SE integrated be able to drive them well, for say the next year, I think it's high-current capable, but am not really sure? :-

Denon POAT-10 Rated Output Power:
8 ohms 120 W/ch (8 ohms, 20 Hz - 20 kHz, THD 0.02%)
(-3 dB at rated output,8 ohms, 20 Hz - 20 kHz) THD 0.008%
4 ohms 200W/ch (4 ohms, 1 kHz, THD 0.5% eek!)

Denon A10SE (reviewed by the late Bob Tomalski) http://www.homecinemachoice.com/testbench/Amplifiers/Denon/DenonAVC-A10SE.shtml I assume an 8-ohm load though?
HCC measured output at onset of clipping : 180.0W RMS @ 6.75% THD
HCC Fidelity Firewall : 132.0W RMS @ 0.016% THD
Frequency response : 20Hz-20kHz +/- 0.5dB


I do also hear your concerns about using the Denon A10SE as a pre-amp with revealing speakers.

What I know is the A10SE is well very reviewed for Music playback, compared to most integrated AV amps and was certainly and surprisingly a little more refined than the pair of Musical Fidelity Integrated A1 amps I used before to power the Linn Index II's. I had to have it the moment I demo'd it and as you can probably guess am rarely rash at buying. From the January 2001 hifi-choice review:
"Sonically, this is easily the most impressive one-box amplifier tested, coming close to equalling the Arcam pair as a stereo amplifier, and exceeding it in multichannel mode, and at a comparatively bargain price. Stereo performance was excellent: rich, full, articulate and altogether a better animal than the others, and thoroughly convincing with a wide range of music types. Bass had more authority despite being set up in the same way as the other systems, "

Direct mode is supposed to be truly that, you can hear large relays clicking in and all digital processing is bypassed (obviously except the DAC's when feeding S/PDIF). Mind you, the digital volume knob still works? It also has 7.1 analog inputs and outputs.

I need to find a way to determine how much the A10SE is limiting source quality?? I will buy some more canare interconnects from scorpioncables.com and compare the m-audio Audiophile 2496 analog output in Direct to the digital input in Direct. I did this test inconclusively (couldn't tell the inputs apart) about a year ago, but was using 256Kbps lame hq MP3's with a MAD 24-bit decoder, plus have upgraded my power cables to Supra LoRad and changed my home-assembled Wilmslow Audio 2x10-inch Isobaric ported active subwoofer with the SVS 25-31 PCi which is amazingly quite a bit cleaner and tighter.

If I know the soundcard analog outputs are relatively clean, I can temporarily feed them straight in to the POA-T10 power-amp (disconnect the A10SE) and use the PC as a 2-ch pre-amp itself (switch off those Windows theme sounds first folks!).

At the time I was skeptical of feeding analog music in to a completely digital processing AV amp, but have since read that, on the A10SE, Direct mode is the genuine article and reportedly doesn't digitise the analog input before the power-amps (probably just some nasty IC to lower the analog volume gain!).

I think I'd probably get a high-end AV pre-amp upgrade within the year. Something like a a Meridian 56x digital controller and use the Denon A10SE as a 5-channel power-amp, plus perhaps sell the POA-T10 and replace it with a lower-spec, but perhaps more hi-fi 2-channel power amp. POA-T10's are very popular as 2-ch power-amps go for some reason, perhaps the THX Ultra certification and gold front that matches many Denon AV amps.

I do appreciate your thoughts.
cheers,
Rob.

 

I'll third the recommendation for the Contour 1.3 Mk. IIs. Top notch speakers - very neutral, even-handed, dynamic, and with good, strong, tight bass. And as for the source-first argument, I have to say I disagree somewhat. For most listeners, a speaker upgrade will bring the biggest rewards IMO. I don't know what sort of level the Indices are, but assuming they're no more than a couple hundred pound entry level speakers, then you may be surprised at the gains the Contours will bring.

Another excellent alternative would be the ATC SCM-12s. They're £999 new, but if you can find them secondhand they should be within your budget (they may be hard to find secondhand, though, as they're a fairly new model).

Yet another alternative is the Leema Xen, which is a tiny wee minimonitor that sounds absolutely stupendous. It's a hefty £1000 for the pair, but again if you can find them secondhand, they'd be within your budget and well worth it. You may have better luck finding them secondhand on studio engineering websites like www.soundonsound.com as the Xens are also used for studio monitoring (though the pro versions are quite a bit uglier than the domestic...)

In any case, I started a thread a couple months back asking for basically the same kind of recommendations that you may find handy. It ended up degenerating into petty bickering, but there were a couple pages of good recommendations...

A-ha! Found it: https://www.audio-forums.com/as-rediect/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1500

You'll have to excuse my waffling (I can get a wee bit longwinded), there is genuinely useful information in there, honest!

BTW, the conclusion to my story in that thread is I got fed up swapping secondhand passive speakers as none of them lived up to my experiences with ATC actives, so I ended up going for a pair of Active 20s, which are just starting to run in nicely now, and sound superb. A wee bit out of your budget, though, at £2700 new... Though you may be able to find some of the older models secondhand for a lot less - and considering you'd be able to sell your POAT power amp, it may even be a possibility... (Trust me, the 20s are fantastic!)

As for your amp, I too have heard about the high quality of the top-of-the-line Denon integrateds, but I think you may be surprised how much difference a high quality stereo-only preamp can make. If the analogue outputs of your M-Audio are up to it, it may be worth getting a home loan of a high quality stereo pre and feeding that into the main channels of the 6-channel analogue input on the Denon.

Alternatively, it should be interesting taking a home loan of a decent hifi CD player and feeding it into the analogue (direct) inputs on your Denon. A good dealer shouldn't mind doing you a home loan if you're serious and will give them a swipe of your credit card.

That said, you do mention that you may wish to move up to a high end AV processor, such as a Meridian 56-something. I had a home loan of a 568.2 and compared it to my stereo preamp (which is the excellent ATC CA-2 at £750), and with the Meridian's pure direct mode there was very little difference between them. - the ATC was ever so slightly better. Unfortunately, in that mode you don't get any bass management, so you wouldn't be able to use your sub with music (unless you hooked it up with the high level inputs). Anyway, yeah, a Meridian 568 would do you very well for stereo.

Anyway, sounds like you have some experimentin' to do! Cool, that's always fun. Although I still think you're best off going for a good pair of speakers before worrying about the rest. I'm sure the Denon won't have any problems driving the Dyns, but I also suspect when you upgrade to a high quality hifi power amp, you'll get a significant improvement.

Dunc

 

The Denon should have enough power-wise, but I suspect the Contour 1.3's will definitely show its quality limitations - they do this rather well unfortunately. A friend of mine ran his 1.3's with an Audiolab 8000a integrated, but had to switch to MF F16/F22 pre/power to truly get to grips with them - a hefty 250 watter per channel to drive those little things, but boy, does it work!!

As always, get a listen with your own kit (or take the amp at least for any demo) - most good-hearted fellows will understand.

BTW, I recently acquired an Audiomeca Mephisto transport for my Chord DAC64 - WHAT A COMBINATION!! A truly superb balance of detail and flow in the music. The seller let me take the Chord DAC along for the demo - got to say the Mephisto/Chord sounded much better than the Audiomeca Transport/Audiomeca DAC - too soft for my ears, no life. But mephisto/DAC64 are just wonderful together (synergy is the word).

At last I have found a transport for sensible money (compared to Chord's own transport) to go with the Chord DAC64.

Bobbybrown

 

Thanks dunkyboy,
I think I learked on your thread in the past. I just tried to re-read it and got bored about page 3 in the accurate = <> musical posts and surprisingly the car comments were the final nail. And I do like quick cars! There's a time and a place...

I wonder if I'm setting myself up for a fall with the Dynaudio Contour 1.3MKII's, if I won't be happy with them for a year till a mothership amp or two gets hauled in with pre-amp to match?

Mind you the Keilidh's I had my eye on have gone too high in price perhaps, for what they are. Particularly as a seller of another pair just replied to me to say they are sold and kindly added a seemingly personal note: "To be honest I'd steer clear of them - a poor speaker imho." Wonder if that's true, or he's a dealer?

I didn't get chance to tweek last night, as a mate came round to watch a film.

I'm not sure where the Linn Index II's fit in these days, I think they were about £400 incl ku-stone stands in 1991 when I bought them, being the only way I could buy Linn's at the time.

I think Index II production ran for about 4 years with very little changes, although Linn replied to my question about my second 1993 vintage pair saying, "not really many production changes, we'd use the newer pair as the front's." Surprisingly, I prefer my originals to the newer ones, ever so slightly. "Linn produced a series II version in 1991 with a 6" woofer and biwire connection. $595 (1994 Stereo Review). " With that price increase they probably topped out at £500 incl ku-stone stands on the UK market in 1994?

From www.audioasylum.com: "The first LINN INDEX speakers (very early 90's) were VERY "bright" and "lively" but coupled with the right type of amp (mostly british) could deliver a very articulate and exciting sound.
The index's definitely benefited from a good source and amp.
However; if the index's were coupled with a bright(harsh*)amplifier, the sound quickly became shrill and edgey (*most jap amps).
LINN INDEX II addressed this problem to some extent but remained an "informative" speaker.
Most speakers at this price point were at the time(in my opinion) quite laid back (Dull).
Place them hard against the wall on stands, original Linn stands were sold as extras."

I have had a few very clued-up people round who have said "nice sound". Probably the room being better than your average bare audio room, or perhaps just being polite, as I was when my neighbour demo'd his new Bose surround system to me. Also, a reasonably well integrated quality active sub relieves the Denon and Linn's of attempting lower bass which helps clarity a lot.

The only systems I've heard briefly that I've instantly liked were the original and recent Meridian DSP5000's. Trouble is, they are at least twice my budget and need a digital feed I believe, so look to be hard to integrate in to an existing AV system.

I guess I can draw vague comparisons to my Kef Reference 200C center, but that's positioned at the top of the screen, isn't a pair and is hard to A/B audition without surround processing in the way.

I've also read a few speaker design books and know there are trade-off for both large and small enclosures, hence why I'm looking to you folks for some real-world experience and inspiration.

Your comments appreciated.

regards,
Rob.

 

The PC can be a very capable source, especially when fitted with a decent sound card as you have.

You might wish to consider using an optical interface, because although coax is better is the traditional wisdom in hifi, with a computer you have a large switch mode power supply, many clocks, motors, etc. In other words, an RFI nightmare. This is then transmitted nicely along your coax, straight into your hifi. The optical cable prevents this.

I run an optical from my Terratec Aureon to my DAC (the coax is used by the CD transport anyway), and this works very well.

Coming back to speakers, I am a great fan of the meadowlark range, although rare in this country. Your budget will definately cover a pair of Kestrel Hotrods, and possibly a pair of Swifts.

 

Thanks Isaac,
That's a good point, having spent a few hundred quid on Supra LoRad mains cable parts to contain RFI/EMF. I have an m-audio CO2 converter around, I'll try that in-line and then pass optical on to the Denon.

I also have an S-Video cable from the Denon's to the HTPC which may also be doing similar RFI abuse. I only use S-Video for playstation2, so I'll connect the PS2 straight on to the HTPC, not via the amp too. It's only used to let me see the on-screen set-up graphics, but I can feed that straight to the projector anyway not via the Denon/HTPC.

I'll try to read-up on the Meadowlark Kestrel Hotrods, and Swifts.

[Edit: I've just agreed to buy some Linn Keilidhs with the stands and latest tweeters. I figured I'll start there, as they were a reasonable price and may not need more amplification or stands immediately and have a good chance of matching the three or four Linn Index II's I'll be using as surround and surround back for multichannel.

I may still audition some of the other recommendations from this thread, but like to hope the Keilidhs give me many years of foot tapping fun first and I'm also hoping that my ears aren't that golden! Although what's the odds I'm Activ bi-amped before the summer?]

cheers,
Rob.

 

I picked up the Keilidh's kesterday. They do indeed appear to have been upgraded to the Ninka/Katan soft-dome treble units, or perhaps they were a last year factory revision, as I've since found out from Linn they are Jan 2000 models, and production looks to have ceased in Oct 2000 when the Ninka replacement was launched.

They are in good shape, except some muppet that originally fitted the composite plinth stands hadn't noticed one of the captive nuts had a bad thread and had continued to screw in the composite stand's bolt, so the grub nut had been screwed on through in to the enclosure and was rattling around the bottom with the screw held in with sellotape!

I had been warned to expect to have to tighten the plinths, so didn't twig why one rattled slightly as I put them carefully in my car!

No harm done as I was able to remove the lower driver and pull the lose nut out and re-fix it properly after having cleared it's bad thread. I took a few photos of the crossover and it's "convert to active instructions" printed on it while looking inside if anyone's interested.

I had a very enjoyable few hours last night listening to them. I think my room was a bit lively on the bass when I placed them where the Index II's were, but moving them forward a few inches helped a lot.

It'll be a few weeks of response measuring, placing, room tuning, source signal re-wiring and general tweeking now.

The Keilidh's are certainly a bit more revealing in the midrange than the Index II's, while being smoother in the top-end, but at about 3 times the price, that isn't really a big surprise.

One thing that surprised me is that don't appear to have highlighted any source limitations that I've noticed yet, although I can now more clearly hear the difference between the Stereo mode and the direct mode's, the later of which bypasses the high-pass "Large speaker/Small speaker" digital crossover in the Denon.

regards,
Rob.

 

Nice one. Great speakers those.

The guy who said ''I wouldnt bother'' was talking boloney IMO.

Should leave the bank account in a reasonable state for more albums/ future upgrades?

NB
I see second hand Linn active cards around a lot. Dont know if this is what you would need to go active ( I SHANT call it actiV) but I suspect so.

Happy listening!
Chris

 

Thanks Chris.

Turning the lights off I really can forget quite where the Keilidh's are, even though I have them right next to the side walls in my 2.8m wide room beside my 2.1m wide projection screen.

Yes, I'm tempted to go 'AKTIV', as I've read that improves on passive Keilidh's openness and detail. I believe there are different activ cards stereo/mono and depending on the Linn amp revision, different card formats.

I'm thinking of some acoustic room treatment to deaden some of the reflections in this room and ideally to tame a +15dB 67Hz standing wave I've measured in there in the past, probably a result of the 5.2m length front to back size.

I think I'll re-try some RTA software, I think it was the ETF5 demo I used before, it really revealed what I felt I was hearing from the Index II's. Trouble is the last few evenings I couldn't be bothered and used the time to listen to music instead!

I'm hoping some of the new Auralex VersaTiles can be used as both corner bass traps for the wall/ceiling edges and broadband absorbers on the walls. Oh and I'm hoping a box of 24 is under £350! I'd also like to pin-up more than gluing as I don't think the next owner of the house would be as appreciative of semi-foam covered walls as me.

From room the few treaments I've heard before and what I've read, that this would be a better next step than new equipment. Apparently this should tighten up the bass, increase clarity and reduce any chance of listening fatigue.

I have also yet to try Isaac's good idea of disconnecting the PC from the AV amp, except a single optical digi connector.

I have re-configured the speakers with that the Denon POAT-10 2-ch power amp is driving the Keilidh's. As before, it sounds pretty much identical to the Denon A10SE's on-board amps, I guess that's why they sold it as a companion add-on power amp then.

It does allow me to try a single line-level audio pair from the m-audio Audiophile2496 straight to the power-amp to hear how much the AV amp is stranging the signal otherwise. Although I'm not in a hurry to hear that, as the solutions get quite expensive for musically transparent 6.1 processors!

Any experience or comments appreciated.

regards,
Rob.

 

I was horrified at the cost of acoustic room treatments, so I am building my own absorbers.

I'll let you know the results when complete if you want.

Early indications are promising.

Chris

 

I know what you mean, I was originally thinking of Auralex Wedges and LENRD corner traps which can cost £300 for the traps alone (2ft x8=16ft corner coverage) and don't do much for anything below 75Hz as they are not large enough for those big wavelengths.

Kits with LENRD's can cost £400 up to double that, with the cheaper kits including only 1" deep wedges which look to not work anywhere near the broadband absorption of 2" VersaTiles, which are rounded so they don't sit flat on the wall/edge and apparently don't look like foam egg-crates!

You'd definitely have a market with the Home Theater crowd and more, if you could provide measurable in-room standing-wave improvement (at a given pre-tuned frequency?) in a relatively hideable form factor or something black that can go ceiling height along the front wall which I'd think is often dark, spare and unused in most dedicated Home Theaters.

Oh, and it should not be flammable, I think there are Class0 ClassA, B, C, etc on those ratings to how much smoke they give off or how flammable they are themselves.

It seems that a lot of HT's with floorstander main speakers have bass problems, even with Large/Small AV crossover settings as the high-pass slope isn't sharp enough to tame the low-in-room peak. It seems to me that very very people can dedicate a room, even fewer can fill it with kit and even fewer can dedicate a larger room.

£100 BFD equialiser equipment seems popular for getting big subwoofer in-room response relatively flat, but it isn't considered viable for main front Home Theater speakers, let alone what you flat-earth guys would think of adding ADC, DAC and digital equalisation in to your playback chains.

regards,
Rob.

 

I'd be interested to know how you get on as I have a problem a bit higher than that myself. The room dimension reinforces at half the wavelength IIRC, so that dimension would be reinfocing 33 Hz. Alternatively, your problem room dimension is 2.56m.

Tell me if I'm wrong
SteveC
[speed of sound ~ 331*0.6temp(C) m/s]

 

Errm! I don't think that is quite right. The speed of sound in air doesn't vary by much with temperature. I usually use 340 m/s for average conditions