Floorstanders or monitors at $3-5k/pr - Page 3

For black standmounts, I suggest some Triad Gold LCR's @$2,150 ea.



http://www.triadspeakers.com/products/irglcr.html

They do need subwoofers though.

Craig

You think she would prefer speaker stands with monitors sitting on top of them over a slim profiled floor stander with matching veneer all the way to the floor? If so, if go with the Philharmonitor or something from maybe Vapor Audio or AJinFL's speaker company. If you just want something okay looking and of the monitor style the Paradigm Reference series might be worth looking into. They won't sound as nice as Salks, though, in my opinion.

I've forgotten about Vapor. I was checking them out many years ago but it seems compared to today's competition they're quite expensive. Way more than towers with RAAL from Salk and Ascend... Would make a nice room decoration though with the exotic cabinets. But I got my Be-718's for that purpose.

My wife said she'd rather have towers than ugly stands that could be tipped over by the kids; I see her point, but to each their own.

Well, the SS7 and Tempestra, while offering great performance will be absolute power hungry monsters. To each reference levels you'd need quite a bit of power, not that you'll be listening that loud (you said you wouldn't). I've heard the SS7 (Warpdrv owns a pair) and it's stunning for the money. I should have clarified my comment about the HT2-TL earlier: it's the best floor standing speaker I've heard under $8000. The SS7 is the best monitor I've every heard, but I haven't heard too many.

Even more reason for you to get nice stable SS8s

My appologies to the OP for the off topic post (I couldn't help myself, Nuance made me do it.).

Selah does make a higher sensitivity, higher output monitor, the Circondare.

To get 100db at 4M [13 ft or so] with speakers with 88db sensitivity at 1M will take 506 watts. Impedance of speaker does not matter.

I allocated for 3dB headroom. Now if the speakers were 95dB sesitive at 1M the power required is reduced to 101 watts.

http://www.crownaudio.com/apps_htm/d...ct-pwr-req.htm

Did OP say how loud he listens? 94db would be 126 watts at 4m

BTW, just a few comments on the high vs lower sensitivity for higher volumes:

a) I agree, once you get to the $3k-$5k pricepoint, higher sensitivity speakers DO NOT mean less musical ability

b) Higher sensitivity speakers tend to be good with dynamics because it takes much less power to do so

c) Easier load on the amplification

Some simple stats to consider:
It takes ~2X the power for a 3db increase
It takes ~10X the power for a 10db increase
A 10db increase is perceptually about 2X as loud
You lose ~6db per doubling of distance
You gain 3db for each doubling of the # of speakers
There is room gain and boundary gain. Boundary gain affects the lowest octaves most and varies on the design of the speaker (di/bipole, rear ported etc have greater gains). Room gain is higher with smaller rooms and decreases with bigger rooms and/or more acoustic treatment and absorbent surfaces (wall hangings, heavy drapes etc).
THX specs call for EACH satellite to be able to hit 105db at the listening positions (and the subs to hit 115db).

With that said, for a placement 4 feet away from the walls, an 89db/w/m speaker needs 358 watts with zero amp headroom to hit THX Reference levels at an MLP 10 feet away from the speakers. It's usually a good idea to have some amp headroom so you don't have to push the amp to it's limits to hit the maximum SPLs you might encounter without distortion or clipping. If you want 3db of headroom, you now need 716 watts.

A 95db/w/m needs 90 watts to do the same when placed in the same positions. 180watts with 3db of amplifier headroom.

How many 89db speakers do you know of that have a power handling rating of 358 watts much less 716 watts?

Just about every 95db speaker in the $3-5k range can easily handle 180watts.

Just a little extra to consider.

As far as music goes, the kind of music will also matter. A lot of pop music had heavy compression so transient peaks don't 'swing' as much as some other types of music. Classical on the other hand can exhibit swings of 30db or more between the softest passages and loudest sections. In the WI GTG, Jim Salk theorized that this is what happened with the reports of a 'blown midrange' that was later tested to be fine. The lower sensitivity Soundscapes potentially pushed the amp into distortion/clipping on one channel. He went on to comment that in a test performed (at RMAF?) a speaker that was hooked up with both an rms and peak meter showed something interesting: IIRC, while playing music the rms meter averaged around 5-8watts, but the peak meter showed transient spikes to 250watts at those rms averages.

For the OP, these might be an option to consider:
http://www.legacyaudio.com/products/view/signature-se/
Seem to be getting pretty good reviews, and if the size is OK, the finish options on them get decent WAF (the Black Pearl finish is gorgeous).


Max

Time to toss those crumb snatchers out and make them find jobs! Your needs sound a lot like mine. Mostly music, some "enhanced" TV watching and an occasional movie. I never considered getting near reference levels although I do occasionally crank the tunes. Time to think "outside the box." Check out the Reference Series although WAF may be a problem, but you'll know that right away. I drive mine with 200 wpc and never have a problem. http://www.roundsound.com/reference.php

List is 6K but they can be had for less.

LOL! Trust me, I'm saving for them as we speak


That doesn't factor in room gain or boundaries like the other calculator does. It also doesn't factor in the fact that the OP said he isn't going to listen at reference levels. Am I the only one that noticed that? The OP says no reference levels, so lets drop the reference levels discussion.

Don't let these high sensitivity guys scare you, saeyedoc. The speakers in the mid to high 80's will play plenty loud for your based on how you described your needs.

I think the transistors were blown on the monoblock powering that channel.

@OP



Salk SongTower Superchraged may be good. You can custom order it in black. The shape is different than the HT2 and much thinner. See if she likes that xP

- Kh[a]os

Jay and Nu, It is a tool only as a starting point.

As far as the 100dB [agreed it is quite loud] it was just a nice round number to plug in the calculator.

As far as the room gain there can be room nulls and drops too.

If you have amps go for these, I love mine!
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/SYNER...MODEL=SM%2060F
Should be just under 5k shipped.

If you do not want to deal with amps
http://www.seaton-sound-forum.com/post?id=3044980#1
Should be at 5k or a few bucks over shipped.

Both speakers will do you just fine!



Forin

Generally only below the Schroeder Frequency, and the OP will be crossing over to his subwoofer to help alleviate that (he mentioned that earlier); he can then apply PEQ only to the subwoofer. Room treatments and EQ such as Audyssey and ARC will help above the crossover.

At 99dB sensitivity why would you need a lot of amplification? A mid powered AVR would be plenty.

Oh, man, we'll never hear the end of it for sure if you get a pair Soundscape.

Millions of pictures and YouTube videos galore.

$8K + shipping on Soundscape 8, huh?

But is there an additional cost for the shiny piano high-gloss red?

Those SPL calculators are very ballpark. The propagation losses are for (point source) free space, not bounded conditions, the multi-source correlation summations apply only at <1/3 wavelength, compression is not factored, etc, etc, etc.
Not quite as useless as the "Room Mode" calculators, but definitely to be taken with a grain of salt and as a very rough estimate.

cheers,

AJ

Nuance:

I agree with you. I can't tell you how tired I am of this whole reference level/high sensitivity speaker binary argument. I reach reference levels in my acoustically treated home theater with an 88 db sensitive speaker (Gallo ref 3.1) with 1 db of compression from the crossover frequency (60hz) to around 100hz-120hz. There is no compression above that point. I can do that because the speakers are in a real room not an anechoic chamber. The 6db loss per doubling of distance is based on a spherical spreading model with no boundary interference. Once you take room reflections into account the equation changes. When you set the 75 db level for using the reference pink noise from your receiver/processor the reflected energy from the room is included in that level. If the LP is 4 meters from the speaker the SPL at 1 meter will be less than the 87 db that the simple model suggests. Obviously this means you are also using less power.

Ultimately your choice of speakers should start as with any solid system engineering approach: a concept of operations.

In what environment will the speakers be placed?
Does this environment restrict speaker placement?
What will the source material be?
How much will you be listening with your spouse/gf?
How loud will you listen?
What is your budget?
Are there certain driver technologies that you particularly like/dislike the sound of?

Some of these are not independent variables. For example your spouse/gf will have an effect on source material, loudness and aesthetics. You can pare these out by performing a sensitivity analysis.

Once you have established the CONOPS then you can levy requirements on your speakers that satisfy it and establish weighting factors for those criteria that are not hard requirements. The latter will establish your trade space for your choice. Then go out and listen to the speakers that meet the hard requriements and grade them based on the trade space criteria.

Approaching your choice systematically in this fashion will result in your greatest chance of long term satisfaction. I believe your speaker search used such an approach, although a bit less formally, I believe. Consequently you ended up with a speaker that both you and your wife throughly enjoy.

In my case, even though I watch more movies than listen to music, music production is very important to me. After all virtually every film has a music score. My speakers also have to serve for both music and movies so my criteria was heavily weighted towards music reproduction.

Cheers,
OldMovieNut

My bad I should have stated it as,"If you want to deal with amps". You are correct an AVR would provide ample juice. Generally when this budget is thrown around I think of external amps





Forin

How did you measure this in your room?
Power compression is frequency dependent, especially with the direct radiator designs that dominate the market.
A nice resource is Soundstage NRC measurements (>2005 IIRC, when they started doing the Deviation From Linearity tests) and the "What it means".
Here is an example Difference @ 95dB, 50Hz - 20kHz (measured @ 2m) that illustrates:


cheers,

AJ

Those RS meters aren't too accurate for what you're trying to measure. But the bottom line is, if your existing speakers don't sound strained or otherwise distressed at the volumes you prefer, they should serve as a guideline for your requirements.

cheers,

AJ

Then you have nothing to worry about in my opinion.


No YouTube vids, but I'll certainly be unable to contain my excitement when (if) I finally purchase a pair. I'll let my wife choose the finish and/or veneer, and I guarantee it won't be hand rubbed polish on top of a beautiful red paint or veneer. At least I'll have SS8's, though.


Agreed