Hi Scot,

I have a thought, but it’s not a speaker recommendation.

We have similar listening rooms, except I’m working with an “L” and not a “T.” After a lot of experimenting, I find that placing speakers on the long wall, as opposed to the short wall, makes a big difference.

If you haven’t already tried this approach, it may be worth testing. For me, positioning speakers on the long wall helps with imaging and soundstage.

My apologies in advance if this is unhelpful. I know you also have to consider the placement of your desk as a second listening position. Frankly, there may be a million reasons why this will not work for you.

Taking a chance that you’re interested, I’ve attached a quick rendering of the concept for your consideration.

Cheers,
Chris

Wish I could use that long wall like that. Unfortunately, its a bit of a no-go. There's some built-in furniture that can't be moved. Short-wall it is.

I like what I read about DeVore, but I've yet to actually hear his speakers. According to my local dealer, they're a hard sell. They do everything right, but nothing extraordinary, and thus customers audition the DeVores and like them, but rarely love them and tend to end up elsewhere. He's not a Silverback dealer, unfortunately, as DeVore limits those rather severely to a select few that can (paraphrasing a conversation I had with John D himself) "put together total systems whose value is in excess of $30k", which pretty much rules me out much as I might wish, plot, and scheme otherwise. Besides, at that price point (~$18k), and given my room, I'm looking for a full range speaker with great low end performance -- and the Silverbacks, while awesome, are not known for awesome bass. Good bass, yes. Not awesome bass. And besides, I'm not a fan of side-firing woofers in a room like this. Long wall, maybe. But then I'd be all over the Gallo Ref 3.5 for 1/3 the cash.

I heard some Wilson Sophias last week. Liked them so-so -- I thought they were lumpy and incoherent, in part no doubt to the crappy showcase room they were in (what?!? Yes, my local dealer has them stuffed into a terrible room), but as I mentioned earlier, they're rather beam-y, so not what I'm looking for regardless.

While at that same dealer, I auditioned some Avalon Indras. I liked these quite a bit more than the Sophia IIs, but for those looking in the same direction, for God's sake, make sure those bad boys are fully clothed before you hit play! With their grills off they were practically unlistenable; they were so tipped up in the treble it hurt. Grills on, they were better, but for those looking at these speakers, you're going to have to do a warm amp -- Bolder or Ayre will decidedly not do the trick. Just one man's audition speaking here, but seriously, caveat emptor.

Which left me with the Magnepans (hell, the 3.6R will probably do me fine, again, for about 1/2 to 1/3 the cash), the Focus and the DeVore, and I'm leaning away from the latter for the reasons mentioned above -- and the fact that I can't audition them locally, which is just wildly annoying.

Any other contenders?

The dealer I bought the Alpha from suggested I simply cannot find a full range speaker worth the money at the sub $15k price point, and FWIW, he seemed as annoyed by that as I was to hear it. He did suggest that I consider monitors with a pair of subs -- and the requisite equalizer to do crossover and delay synchronization. Something like the Usher Tiny Dancer with some Velodyne subs and a Bryston crossover. Seems kludgy to me, and likely to end up being just as expensive as a not-quite-full-range speaker in the $12k-$15k range.

I've mostly heard the Nines, in the DeVore suite in Vegas, backed with pricey Nagra gear, but my god it's heavenly how good they sound. They would be my speaker of choice. If I could afford them or thought I'd have the right kind of room, the Silverbacks would be a shoo-in.

http://www.kingsaudio.com.hk/
The King model retails for $8000, I hear these wowed visitors at ces

Anybody heard the big Zu's and care to comment?

To be fair I have not heard the silverbacks. Having said that, I love my Devore 7.1's and have never heard anything but praise going up the line, especially for the silverbacks. Also, I'd second the idea of putting some thought into a subwoofer. I really think they've come into their own in recent years for use in 2ch systems. FWIW I personally would look at getting one or even two smaller JL Audio Fathom subs, possibly with an external crossover such as the Bryston 10B-sub. Happy hunting.

Have you ruled out Emerald Physics (from your other post)?

All good perspective Scot. If you're ever in the St. Louis area you're welcome to audition the EPs at my home.

Salk is working on a new signature speaker.

It's suppose to have very good off axis response.

Take a look at this thread:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=67978.0

I'm not sure a line array is going to work -- I sit more in the near-field than most line arrays like, about 6-8' instead of 9'+. They're interesting, though.

The new Salk sounds interesting, but I fear that the design is still in the alpha-stage from the sound of it.

Scot, have you heard any of the Mark & Daniel line? Since it's another line that Walter sells I'm wondering if you've ever discussed these with him. 6moons has positive things to say about a number of their models.

Best,

Bob

Seem to be very nice, but I've never heard them. They're a bit low sensitivity, though, no?

I have a pair of Usher BE 20 and could not happier. In the US, the price is a bit above your budget but BE10 would also be well worth auditioning. I have not heard the new diamond tweeter that Usher is bringing out to replace its Berylium/Titanium tweeter yet but a friend who heard Usher with new tweeter at CES says that it is a significant upgrade and it can be fitted to the old Usher speakers as well.

Sonus Faber Cremona M is also well within your limit although it is probably happier in a small to medium room. The 3M Grand Veena version two is well under your budget. I heard it in a longish room with the speakers placed almost half way out into the room and the bass was surprisingly very fast and very generous, considering the size fo the speaker and size of the room. I was not all that impressed with the first version of Grand Veena when I home auditioned it but version two is a different story.

I think the Dynaudio are very interesting, but I don't know much about them other than they're on the pricier end of my spectrum. As for Focal, I like them, but even if that tweeter wasn't a bit hard, none of their models hit my target bass range (20s not 30s) in my price range (under $15k, preferably, under $10k).

I hear the Usher BE-10 and 20's are very nice, except for that so-called diamond tweeter, which is to all accounts, very very hard/lean/bright. Too bad. That last semi-Beryllium tweeter was okay. And anyway, $20k for the BE-20 is out of my league.

Sonus Faber? Amazing speakers. But to get anything approaching deep bass out of them, they cost more than a new BMW. Cremona M are beautiful, but they fall off a cliff after 40Hz.

Some other things I've learned along the way: no side-firing speaker ports. My room is too narrow, and I'm worried they'll phase all over the place.

Oh, and it'd be really cool if they could be driven by tubes ... not a requirement, but it'd be nice cuz I think tubes are cool. ;-)

I think right now, I'm most interested to hear the Gershman Avant Garde and the Focus FP90. Auditioning either will prove challenging! In the meantime, I've borrowed a DD-12. I'll hook that up in parallel with my Merlins tomorrow to see what's-what.

Yeah, not sure what to say about that tweeter. Have you actually heard it yet? Not actually diamond, of course, but some kind of carbon structure with "properties similar to" diamond. Whatever that means. That said, maybe it just takes 500+ hours or more to break in. Anyway, a local dealer is actually considering dropping the entire line b/c of the change. To me, this is totally an issue of taste so expect that YMMV, but all I can report is what my "proxy ears" (somebody who's judgment/taste most closely matches my own, at least to date) have told me. You know, it's a total shame that RMAF is in the Fall, b/c maybe we could all arrange a CA "group outing". Chris could be our group leader. ;-)

Anyone heard the last-gen VR-4 Mk 2 speakers from Von Schweikert? Any comments? Comparisons to the Mk III?

Well, my handy-dandy local dealer had a DD-12 he let me take home to try out. As you may or may not remember, I was rather non-plussed with the bass my Totems were putting out. They're "rated" to 16Hz, but my suspicions is that this is largely a 10dB point, not a 3dB, or something worse. Whatever. Anyway, out they came and in went the Merlin VSM-MME "towers". Maybe I could "get by" with them, if a subwoofer would do the heavy lifting if you know what I mean.

In mucking about with this one sub (its all he had, and I'll be most likely looking for a dual-sub solution if this is the route I take), I moved it all over before settling on an up-against-the-sidewall position as the curve produced the least "choppy" response curve. In so doing, however, I managed to create a loop, which is fun. Love sending the amp into short. Yep. Sweet. See, I'm running the sub on the high-level ins (as in, the so-called "speaker ins"), which means running speaker cables from your amp terminals into these screw-down terminals on the sub. Given that the the posts on the sub are small and close together and the spades on my spare Acoustic Zen Satori speaker cables are over-sized, and that the posts are also not capable of really bearing down and immobilizing the spades ... one shift of the sub and the spades all tilt to one side ... and touch ... BOOM.

Anybody have a 10-amp slow-blow fuse handy?

On to amp #2! I dusted off my Ars-Sonum 25wpc Class A EL-34-based integrated amp and promptly had to re-jigger my rack. No way that this amp fits into the rack (too hot), so the turntable and the amp switch places, and all is good with the glowing bits all up top. I then start fiddling with the Cardas binding posts ... and after much finagling, finally manage to slip two sets of spades under the single pair of posts, running both my Merlins and the DD-12 in parallel.

Sound is coming out -- Check. Bass? Um, yeah. At the default of "30" for volume on the DD-12, yeah, I have bass. LMAO. Volume ... D-O-W-N. Ok, volume now set to "2". Yes, "2".

And the bass is there -- big as yo' Mamma's bee-HIND. I set to the one of the defaults, the "Jazz" setting, which gives me the highest Q rating (tightest bass). I'm gonna need to dial it in quite a bit more, but now, for the first time, I actually need bass traps. So THIS is what "full range" would be in my room. VERY interesting.

I'm going to preliminarily say that this isn't my cuppa. No, I don't have the settings right -- there's too much boom -- but I'm dubious that this is ever going to produce the kind of response I'm going to be happy with even when dialed in.

I like the idea & philosophy behind the Geddes (which is similar to speakers from EP, Martin Logan, Wilson and Avant Garde), but controlled dispersion speakers are probably not what I'm shooting for here. All can sound amazing, but the way these speakers work is to "beam" the sound into a rather narrow sweet spot. Very interesting designs to be sure, and some even have amazing sound, but I suspect I'm hunting a different beast. I could be wrong, but that's my guess.

My room is killing me, I think. At 13' wide, I don't have a lot of options that I might have otherwise been really into -- namely, towers with side-firing woofers, or horns. Horns would have been really nifty, and I've always drooled over the AG Uno Nanos.

Anyway, this hunt is turning out to be pretty fruitless. There's lots of great speakers out there, but few doing everything I think I'm interested in -- and the more I look, the more reading I do, the slipperier my criteria become. I may need to give up some of my new-found wouldn't-it-be-cool-if goals, but that'd be a bummer. Alternatively, I could magically come into some money (Megamillions, here I come!). Ah, well. Anyway, my (current) wish list:

90+ efficiency
Flat 8+ ohms
No side-firing woofers
Flat (+/- 1.5dB or so) response below 30Hz, with the +/- 3dB point in the mid-to-low 20s (or lower!)

I'd really like to drive them with tubes. It's a nostalgia thing, nothing more, but it's something I keep coming back to, so what the hell. So, I'm expecting that the amps will be less than 150 wpc, which means anything below 90dB efficiency/sensitivity is out, regardless of how stable it is. I'm not afraid of powered woofers, but I'd prefer an integrated solution over one with separate subs.

On the agenda: auditioning some Mark & Daniel speakers! Yes, these pretty much violate 3 out of the 4 criteria (low efficiency, hard to drive, and no deep bass), but I have a local dealer who thinks they're amazing, 6moons loves them, and Catastrophe mentioned them, so why not.

Also on the agenda: room conditioning. I have a call into GIK and hopefully they'll get back to me soon on what might be a good first step.

I think you will have difficulty meeting all of your criteria within your budget, unless: do the Merlins do everything you want with the exception of bass? If they do, I would suggest the following: get 2 JL Fathom 10"-12" subs-these subs are tight (non ported design) and after trying a lot of different subs for use with different speakers at RMAF and CES, I found the JLs to be the best by far. the JL subs are the most music friendly subs I have heard, and properly set up they can flesh out the bottom octaves seemlessly with many speaker types. The key with subs is setup, first one must believe that a seemless integration with the main speakers is possible (otherwise one will settle with a less than optimum set up). Then you must be patient setting up the subs.
Personally, I prefer to have a speaker that can "do it all", but the fact of the matter is that it is almost impossible for a speaker to achieve deep bass response, when positioned and designed for best midrange/treble and imaging. Of course, if you could afford Vandersteen 7s... The Merlins are great speakers, I think with some effort that you can make a full range setup around them and a pair of good subs. The JLs can be run off of the amplifier speaker binding posts (recommended for best integration) but this does require the addition of some impedance matching (as they are only equipped with low level type inputs)-JL Audio can help with a simple impedance matching circuit to allow for direct amp connection.
2 10" subs might be enough for your room-I have had very good results (some of the best controlled deep bass I have ever heard) with 2 12" JLs matched with Avalon's 2 way "Ascendent" speaker in a big suite at RMAF. A lot of the subs out there are not all that accurate, and end up adding uncontrolled bass-the JLs are very well controlled and do not have these problems.

Scot, controlled directivity (CD) speakers most definitely do not imply a narrow "head in vise" like sweet spot. I can see, however, how you might think this since the very term implies since the directivity is "controlled" that it might also be "small or narrow". Probably an engineer that coined the term - those guys rarely make good marketeers!

Anyway, CD speakers have one of the largest sweet spots of all speaker designs - horizontal and vertically. As I noted in a previous post, I own the Geddes Abbey speakers after having owned a large array of high speakers including electrostatics, line arrays and conventional omni-directional multi-driver designs such as Wilson and Dynaudio.

I can't speak for all CD designs, but in the case of the Abbey's you basically have a two way design where the tweeter (a spherical waveguide with patented foam insert to deal with any diffraction issues mated to a compression driver) and pro woofer both have a 12" diameter. Therefore, the wave launch from both drivers is matched. The speakers are toed in such that you get a wave cross 1-2' in front of the listener. As opposed to omni-directional designs which radiate out at 180 degrees the Abbey's radiate out at 90 degrees with a very flat on and off axis response. This is more than enough to create a very large, stable and deep soundstage. When you move from the center listening position your perspective on the soundstage just changes.

One of the big advantages of CD designs is that because you have 90 degree dispersion vs 180 degree you get dramatically less wave spray to the side walls, ceiling and floor. Unless you have a well engineered room which effectively diffuses these early reflections the soundstage at the listener position "muddied". When you add the fact that the vast array of speakers do not have flat on and off axis response you get a doubly whammy - lots of early sound wave reflections with uneven frequency response. Bottom line, CD speakers typically will sound very good in non-treated or engineered rooms at the HF and MF. Of course with the LF you have to deal with room modes. After trying multiple small subs in my room I'm a believer that this is the best way to get flat LF response.

Like Happy, I also like open baffle designs like the Orion, but in my current situation I could not manage a placement with them 4' off the back wall and 2-3' off the side wall. The Abbey's are a sealed box design and can be sit right into the corners of the room with excellent results, although one gets a deeper soundstage if you can put them a little bit off the back wall.

Aside from the CD design, the other big thing I like about the Geddes design is the realistic high frequency and mid range the waveguide/compression driver produces. It makes the majority of hard and soft dome tweeters sound colored and compressed. I've listened to a live Cream DVD on these speakers with SPL peaks at 110db with no ear strain or bite.

After 30 years of being an audiophile and having owned primarily mega-expensive speakers that are pushed by the mainstream high end audio industry, I am amazed that I am getting the best sound from a pair of $3600 two way speakers. I should note that I have no commercial interest in Geddes Audio and....these babies will not win any beauty contests! A trade off with their design is a wide front baffle and a boxy shape.

earflappin, so when is our summer bbq at your place? I wanna hear these!

Ha! I live in Richmond, VA. Where are you?

Bernhard, I owned a pair of Evidence Temptation's. They replaced my Wilson Watt/Puppy's. When I lived in Boston I was 15 minutes from Goodwins High End....one of the nation's premier high end dealers. They sold me my Temptations and I had a chance to hear lots of speakers in their showrooms including Avalon's, Verity's, Devore's, Magico's and Rockport's. I loved those Temptations, but I routinely listened to live music and I could never shake the feeling that they didn't compare well to how live music sounded.

Austria - very nice place to live. I lived in Stockholm for 5 years and Brussels for 4 years and travelled throughout EMEA. I love Europe. I hope the EU can get through the financial issues faced by PIIGS. Anyway, I don't have a solution for you unless you get over my way.

EuroChamp, my response regarding where you lived was directed at Machinehead who suggested a barbecue this summer at my place. That's where the confusion started. Sorry.

My solution to get more live sounding music from my speakers was to sell my Dynaudio Temptation speakers and get Geddes Abbey speakers. I didn't mean to infer you needed a solution.

Happy listening.