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My New Speakers


TBrennan

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I just sold my house and moved into a highrise apartment. My VOTs are long gone but I thought I could use my Altec 605s. But they just didn't fit with what I wanted to do with my frontroom.

So I started lisening to small speakers and ended up with these KRKs from Guitar Center. They sound much better than the official "audiophile" small speakers I listened to such as Coincident, Paradigm, B&W, Mirage and Quad (yeah, Quad makes small cone-domers now). Pretty good litle speakers; good tonal balance and good clarity at low to medium volumes.

They're driven by a Denon receiver, I gave away all my tube stuff: a pair of Fisher SA-100s, an 80AZ, a pair of Wave 8s; lots of other stuff too including Altec woofers, drivers, horns and crossvers, just gave it away, good-bye. Listening to this unpretentious little system has freed my mind and allowed me to listen better to the music (this is what's called making a virtue of necessity).

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kinda liberating huh tom, cleaning up and stripping down? I am glad you put together a satisfying system in your new digs. I cannot help but think the urge may creep back to upgrade, swap, etc. the equipment in the future, but until then ENJOY my friend. tony

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Tom-

Good to hear. Those KRK are very highly regarded in the recording industry (not that that matters). I believe they make a sub as well should you feel the need. Oh, that's right you won't, you had VOT's.2.gif

Just joking!

Good luck in your new digs.

Ben

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Simplifying your system can be quite liberating, but all your tubes and horns too? That's cool by me...I'm a Guitar Center employee, and we sell quite a few KRK monitors at our location as well. They are a fine little monitor at a great price, but won't you miss a horn-loaded loudspeaker?

My cheap thrill is going over to the soundroom at the Pro Audio dept. before the store opens in the morning and firing up the JBL or Mackie powered horns and a pair of B-52 18" bass-bins, powered by two 1000 watt Crown amps, feeding a Tascam or Alesis digital recorder through a 24 channel Mackie mixer, and blasting Pink Floyd's live "The Wall" CD to some ungodly sound level...damn if the concert's not in your face!

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Liberated from what Tom? What happened man? I can't even related to getting rid of the house. Your with friends here, what gives? And if you've got less than a year to live or something else like that -- you mind as unload and let us give you some support.

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Dean---Liberated from all this audiophile worrying, tweaking and obsessing. Just listening to the music the way I used to do 40 years ago when I had a cheap GE stereo.

Owning a house is a pain in the ***. Houses are for raising kids. I had one for 30 years, my kids are raised now and I don't need it. I'm retiring in 4 months and an apartment will provide me with much more freedom; if I want to travel for a few months I just pay the rent ahead and hit the road. If I get tired of living where I am I just pack-up and go, that's it. Maybe I'll try Maryland or Kentucky. Maybe I'll go to Seattle or perhaps go live in Italy or Ireland for a year or two. Who knows.

Too many possesions can tie you down, they can own you instead of you them. Now as long as you're raising kids and stuck in one place you might as well have some toys. But I'm a-ready to move on.

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Do you like lots of trees with huge hills and sandstone cliffs -- with long winding roads that take you into the Twilight Zone?

Northeastern Kentucky, Daniel Boone National Forest area. More specifically, the Red River Gorge Geological Survey area. 30 square miles of pure sandstone and greenage. Stanton Kentucky is the nearest small liveable town, and most of the Do Drop In food is killer. I've backpacked most of the area, and have the back problems to prove it. Land is dirt cheap, and the people are down to earth and decent. I suppose if I wanted a place to "retire" -- that would be the place.

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Dean----Kentucky; Dark and Bloody Ground. Just watch out the Shawnee don't cross the big river and take your hair. Ever read a biography of ole Boone? Quite a story. Man lost several close relatives, including two sons, to the Indians. He was captured by the Shawnee once and taken up to Ohio and adopted into the tribe by ole Blackfish. Yeah, quite a story.

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I LOVE the KRK gear. especially the self amplified stuff. sounds so good. those and the Mackie studio monitors. hey, a thought just came to me. if true audiophiles seak gear that in no way affects the original recording, er, source material, why don't they all use studio monitors? the Mackie HR824's have as flat of frequency response as anything. and I'm willing to bet big money it's flatter than the super speakers you see. http://www.mackie.com/products/hr824/index.html scroll down a bit to see the frequency response chart...

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Tom:

Glad to hear you're enjoying your new place and system, BUT I'll be interested to see how long you'll last before you need some new horns. I've tried to kick this audio habit a few times and just listen to music like I did when I was a poor student, but not been successful.

Anyway, make sure you get back to the Forum frequntly. I always enjoy your posts.

Mike

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Lord, Tom! Some of those speaker makes you listed do make some ok monitors as I have had them in and out of various systems I have set up for people (and my own home). Have not heard the KRK's however. I generally have not liked pro sound gear of this type from my station and studio days. Everything I bought from this sect sounded more harsh with tipped up highs or a lack of transparency. It took 6 months to get rid of the Crown D75 amps from our station. Some love them...lord. Glad you found something you liked though, Tom. Good to see you happy at least. Nice bookshelf, btw. Fun to scan the titles.

OF course, you know that if I posted the above, you would have been all over me with that, "little speakers with little tiny drivers are for little brains etc " heh... Remember the good ole days? I once mentioned some ProAc monitors and you started frothing at the mouth!

I second Mike's statement... Keep in touch. Sorry to hear about that receiver though. You should have kept one tube integrated for laughs. It would have served as a small fireplace for that hovel!

kh

ps- prodj, I have heard some AWFUL speakers that measure VERY flat... Measurements sure dont tell you everything, and surely not always how they will sound.

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Kevin (AKA Cut Throat) has some bookshelf speakers that truly impress me every time I hear them. They have a cement(!) case and what look like two fairly conventional drivers.

Of course he has them on stands that probably cost as much as the speakers, but maybe real bookshelves might do the trick, if they can hold some cement boxes, that is.

For some reason the name of them just won't stick in my memory. Probably because they sound so darn good I'm threatened by them.

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