standmounts to floorstanders

need a bit of help with this.

currently have a wadia 16/bel canto 2i/dynaudio 1.3 mkIIs. the dyns have fallen foul of the SO (something about the silver stands) - and tbh i am not sure i am getting the most out of them because my room is on the smallish side (bit of bass boom, for instance) so i am thinking of replacing them with a compact floorstander that doesn't need a lot of space to perform. current contenders include the totem arro, the neat elite se and maybe the meadowlark kestrals. budget £1300.

does anyone have any experience of/own any of these speakers? i'd be interested in learning more about their sonic characteristics before demoing - or am i mad to think i can easily replace the 1.3s? thanks.

 

I replaced dynaudio contour 1.1's with kestrel hotrods. Im still happy with the choice i made.

 

small floorstanders

Why not replace your dynaudio standmounts with some dynaudio floorstanders - that's if you still like their sound.

I run some dynaudio 62's, which are 80cm high, requiring only a slight toe in, and 20-30cm from the back wall. However, they do need a bit of space around them, so it really depends upon how small your listening area is.

Mine are now available on pfm - but the whole range of floorstanders from dynaudio are excellent, being front ported, with a well controlled bass. I heard some 72se's recently, and they were really excellent - although that comes with a £1,700 price tag!

 

Your bass boom isn't necessarily the fault of the speakers. Much more likely you are experiencing a room mode. For example, if your listening space is 4m long, you will have a bass hump at about 43 Hz which is particularly difficult as much modern music contains sustained notes around this frequency.

One approach to dealing with this is to fit the foam bungs into the Dyns so that they role off a bit earlier thus not energising the room mode so much. Then add a subwoofer which is capable of a roll-off such that it is silent by 40 Hz (RELs will do this. Not all others will as their cut-off can't be set low enough so check the specs carefully). With a little luck this will give you a relatively even response down to 20 Hz.

The formula for the worst room modes is as follows. If L is the length of the room in metres, then the frequencies to watch out for are:

170/L at the room boundaries
340/L at the room boundaries and in the centre
680/L at the room boundaries, centre and quarters.

To an extent they can all be avoided by placing the listening position at the one third point from the back wall. However, there will also be nulls in the response and these occur at the one third point, so some experimentation is usually required. The null frequenicies are centred between the peak frequencies. I've found the quarter position to be about the best compromise here.

Changing to floorstanders is, on its own, unlikely to fix the problem.

 

chris

no room for a sub i'm afraid. tried the bungs - killed the boogie. the dyns need a lot of space to really sing; just don't have the space they need hence the post (not forgetting her in doors as well).

 

Having just paired my Bel Canto with a pair of Kestrel 2s, I can confirm that there is an almost magical synergy between the two. The result is spectacular and comfortably sees of the previous two pairs of speakers I was using with this amp (those being Harbeth Compact 7 ES-2 and PMC GB1). There is an openness to the Kestrel 2s that is quite wonderful.

Anyway, with the budget you have you can easily import a brand new pair of Kestrel 2's from the USA. That's what I did and it was a pretty straightforward transaction.

Matt.