What is the most musical speaker..........?

[garymd]

Some of the nicest people I know are attorneys. Some of the scummiest people I know are attorneys. Same goes for engineers. My wife is an attorney. My father and 2 brothers are engineers. We're all people. Some good, some not so good. I know of a few attorneys in this forum that are great guys. Get my drift? Geeeesssszzzz.

[Klipschfoot]

Way Way Way OT:

A lawyer and two friends, a Rabbi and a Hindu holy man, had car trouble in the countryside and asked to spend the night with a farmer.

The farmer said "There might be a problem; you see, I only have room for

two to sleep, one of you must sleep in the barn." "No problem," spoke the

Rabbi, "My people wandered in the desert for forty years, I am humble

enough to sleep in the barn for an evening." With that he departed to the

barn and the others bedded down for the night.

Moments later a knock was heard at the door; the farmer opened the door,

there stood the Rabbi from the barn. "What's wrong?" asked the farmer. He

replied, "I am grateful to you, but I can't sleep in the barn. There is a

pig in the barn and my faith believes that is an unclean animal."

His Hindu friend agrees to swap places with him. But a few minutes later

the same scene reoccurs. There is a knock on the door, "What's wrong, now?" the farmer asks. The Hindu holy man replies, "I too am grateful for

helping us out but there is a cow in the barn and in my country cows are

considered sacred. I can't sleep on holy ground!"

Well, that leaves only the lawyer to make the change. He grumbled and

complained, but went out to the barn.

Moments later there was another knock on the farmer's door. Frustrated and tired, the farmer opens the door, and there stood the pig and the cow!

[garymd]

Gee. I never would have guessed how that one would end.

[kjohnsonhp]

I stopped by the Tweeter today to hear the ML's again. I first heard then in Kansas in the early 80's with their panel only Monolith which I believe was their first product. I've heard them recently about 4 times and today I heard the Ascents with the high-end Denon receiver. I heard the Norah Jones CD (I'm growing to dislike this disc...she attacks the microphone at times and on the revealing ML's her enunciation has edge..."I LLLefT my..." I think the electronics and the CD choise weren't a great match today as I've had better ML demos. They are not foregiving at all and I continue to stuggle with their bass impact (drums on Allan Parsons Project CD) and I'm not very good at getting subs to integrated into my speakers demos. The small REL helped but stood out.

I also heard the Vienna Beethovans with B&K (of course). I've heard them before and they had the same smooth, 5th row sound like DynAudio and Onix Rocket. They are pretty but way over priced at over $4k/pr but you can find them in the 2's on audiogon and Tweeter has them at $3500 on clearance in rosewood. If you like this type of sound the Onix Rocket RS750 Signature Editions at under $1500/pr are a better value plus you can save even more on a package deal new. With the edgy Norah vocal tracks the Viennas showed their smoothness and pleasant sound. I just haven't been able to get them to "rock" with bass impact and midrange like others.

The general speaker room had the Sonus Faber Grand Pianos and this was my worst demo to date. I have heard the Sonus in much better setups but today the A/C was roaring over my head and there was something about the setup that made the sound thin and notably worse than my other Sonus evals. I've heard the Grand Pianos 4 or 5 times and they are better than today's demo....kinda in between the Vienna's and the RF7's. Earlier in the year I did an A/B with the RF7 and Vienna Mozarts which really highlighted the extreme between these two speakers.

I find the ML's intriguing with certain recordings and in the right setup but I don't think they are the more general purpose speakers for me. The Viennas seem to be the anti-Klipsch with a smooth focused image, good looks and the ability to disapear into the room apart from the sound. The Sonus seem more typical for a cone tower and used or on sale under $2500/pr they seem to be a lower priced alternative to the B&W N804, and Monitor Audio GR60 although I like the GR60's better.

I don't seem to get excited until I step up up a notch in price to something like the KEF Ref205 or mbl 300e which would be an interesting comparison with the SF Cremonas. I've also been meaning to hear the ProAc towers and Maggies at my local Linn/Rega/AR dealer.

Given the price of all these modern speakers the Klipsch Heritage, manufacturer direct and DIY kits such as GR Research, Onix, and VMPS seem more appealing.

In addition to my Klipsch I own a pair of 1983 B&W DM220's which I will eventually sell.

[Gilbert]

"Some of the nicest people I know are attorneys. Some of the scummiest people I know are attorneys. Same goes for engineers."

Hi Gary:

Same goes of engineers, NO WAY!.........Just kidding, and I get your drift, but trust me, you did'nt have to explain it. I just got carried away by Artto's apparent taking offence to my questions.

I did say most attorneys though, and unfortunately, the term most comes from past experiences. Even when the attorney(s) represented me. I could tell you first-hand some wopper stories that would curl your hair.

By the way, there are attorneys in both my wifes, and my families. All of them have a great sense of humor, which is good because I love teasing them. Anyway, that's it for me; I think I'll sit back for a while a be a forum spectator. See ya

[artto]

A young lady goes to the gynecologist for the first time. During her examination, she asks the Doctor, "Doctor, is it possible to get pregnant from anal sex?"

The Doctor looks up & says "Why of course it is dear! Where do you think Attorneys come from?"

[rstudenr]

Hi

I own 4 of the latter 801 B&W speakers, i build a set of stands to place one on top of the other predating the model 800 concept by a couple of years. The tweeters are spaced 1" apart from one another. The woofers are powered by a set of mono Adcom GFA 835 300 wpc, and the tweeter midrange modules are powered by a set of Sony mono Esprit 900 250 wpc Amplifiers. Wires are Monster on the woofers and Cardas on the tweeters, Pre-amp is a Denessen JC-80. Room size is 12'6" x 21'. in my humble opinion it sounds quite well. I believe it to be very musical.

I have always liked the sound of the B&W speakers and this is my idea of how to improve the sound. Send me your e-mail address and I will send you a picture of the set-up. I also build my own air-bearing tone arm that is de-coupled 7x.

Regards

Reiner K. Studenroth

topspeed200@gmail.com

[Dennie]

Hi
I own 4 of the latter 801 B&W speakers, i build a set of stands to place one on top of the other predating the model 800 concept by a couple of years. The tweeters are spaced 1" apart from one another. The woofers are powered by a set of mono Adcom GFA 835 300 wpc, and the tweeter midrange modules are powered by a set of Sony mono Esprit 900 250 wpc Amplifiers. Wires are Monster on the woofers and Cardas on the tweeters, Pre-amp is a Denessen JC-80. Room size is 12'6" x 21'. in my humble opinion it sounds quite well. I believe it to be very musical.
I have always liked the sound of the B&W speakers and this is my idea of how to improve the sound. Send me your e-mail address and I will send you a picture of the set-up. I also build my own air-bearing tone arm that is de-coupled 7x.
Regards
Reiner K. Studenroth
topspeed200@gmail.com

Welcome to the Klipsch Forum, good to have you here Reiner.

I just wanted to make sure you knew this thread is about 8 years old and some of the folks may no longer be around.

You seem to have a passion for music and your gear, so you'll fit right in. []

Dennie

[pauln]

If he had asked what is the tallest , heaviest, or other objective attribute he might have gotten a coherent and conclusive consenus.

But "musical" is like best, finest, prettiest... even worse in fact, because it may imply some musical expertise to qualify one to make the evaluation.

Does one need to be a real performing musician?

Or a recording engineer?

Someone with a flat spot on their butt from a life of attending concerts?

Someone who can create a speaker design on a napkin with a pencil and a sliderule?

Someone who can hear in mono when Sonny is turning to face Ray and Shelly to signal the end of his sax solo?

Admitedly, this does kind of describe many here...

-----------------------------------

Just guessing, I would expect the most musical speaker to have been designed from a set of fundamental and physically correct guiding principles, call them cardinal rules or something, and evaluated by direct comparison to live music.

Hmmm... what a coincidence! I have a pair of those just like Dean predicted.

[Cody_Mack]

Hey pauln, where you been?

Rick

[soundbound]

Focal JMlab Grande Utopia Be

[SSnyder]

MAGGIES (magnipanns) with a doubt

[rstudenr]

Thanks, well I would post a picture of the speaker set-up if only i knew how.

The air bearing tone-arm I designed was a work in progress over a span of about 8 years. I then concluded that it sounds just fine and quit tweaking it. The key element centers around eliminating resonances thru 7 barriers of de-coupling the same. I have no engineering background. The most help I received was a Engineer at Ford who worked on suspension systems. He gave me the 5 cent course of resonance elimination. Well I took that to heart and applied that theory. The tonearm which I used for reference was a Denessen air bearing tangential tonearm. I had 2 Luxmann PD 300 turntables, same record, and 2 identical cartridges and the only variable was the tonearm itself, based on that I made my changes, upgrades, alterations. What did i listen for? More music. Yeah stereo is a hobby and it keeps me occupied. I have approx 10000 lp's and 3500 cd's. My current favorite is something along the lines of new age music.

Regards

Reiner K Studenroth

[garyrc]

This thread is back now that it's 2011?

With good recordings, the most musical would be the most accurate ... but accurate how? I like PWK's view that low distortion is of high importance and frequency response would be far down on the list (but it wasn't in the early '50s, when some speakers were +/- 15 dB within bandwidth). Consumer Reports made a big mistake when they equated accuracy with smooth frequency response. An accurate speaker would have good, clean, effortless dynamics, including micro-dynamics. When the music is earth moving, it should still sound earth moving over the speakers. Big bass should create a wind in the room, and shiver the timbers of most rooms. When Leonard Bernstein writes a double f passage that he marks "Presto Barbaro," it should be barbaric. Given that, the most musical would include the Klipschorn, Jub, one of the big JBL studio monitors (forgot the name & model). Some movie theater speaker systems are quite good, from the old JBL units that Ampex packaged for 70 mm Todd-AO, to whatever they had in the Regal Cinema when I saw Phantom of the Opera a few years ago.

With bad, edgy, or lifeless recordings, something that will sweeten them up and veil them a bit might sound more "musical." Some of the old Bozak medium size, 3 way, all cone speakers were pretty good at this, especially with strings.

I must say that the some of the High End speakers that are the darlings of Stereophile and The Absolute Sound sound wimpy to me.

[khorn51]

A 55 Jensen p12r give ot take a few years powered by a 55 fender deluxe,

with amy year strat ( the older the better) on the front end.

After recoding the above played back on a 47 khorn.

[pauln]

Hey pauln, where you been?

Rick

"I've been here and,

I've been there and;

I've been in between."

[Mallette]

Hey pauln, where you been?

Rick

"I've been here and,

I've been there and;

I've been in between."

I'm glad to see you around as well.

Where did you get the pix you use as your avatar? Certainly looks like something one might see in Houston...

Sort of like "Bridge Out-Use Judgment"

Dave

[pauln]

Hey Dave! How have you been?

That picture was cropped from something I found on the internet.

I was just thinking of you the other day while studying Chapter 17 (Reproduction from Records) of Langford-Smith's Radiotron Designer's Handbook, Fourth Edition.

I love the way people used to write; clear words, unambiguous phrases, useful equations and calculations... nothing like that now days. Dozens of questions I had set aside over the years as unanswerable from searching on the net were answered quickly and clearly when I found this old book.

Technical Books Online

Preserving the Knowledge of the Ancients!

Paul

[Roberth]

Excuse me, but how can you say Avantgarde is more musical than Klipsch? In my opinion and they who agree with me, avantgarde speakers are some of the most analytic speakers that are being sold today. Some describe them so analytic that they end just listening to hifi parameters and not the music itself...

[Mallette]

Preserving the Knowledge of the Ancients!

Great site! I downloaded The Recording and Reproduction of Sound, Oliver Read, 1952, 790 pages to my nook and sampled a bit. You are so right. Clarity and lasting value. Great reminder that while technology changes, the basic goals do not and much of this will be as valid in a 100 years as it was in 1952.

Dave