You are certainly in a very popular price category with a lot of choices. I was there last year and went with the Sabrina X's. in my system, they do everything right. (I also have a REL s/510 in the system). You are likely to be underpowered for them though . . . I drove them with a PrimaLuna Dialogue HP amp while my Pass 250.8 was being serviced and the PrimaLuna worked well, but not in the same league as the 250.8, which has as much power as you could need. The Perspectives are also a great choice, but also not a very sensitive speaker.
Floorstanding speaker experiences/recommendations in the $12-25k range
I realize there are thousands of options, but I'm looking for strong personal experiences/recommendations for floor-standing speakers in the $12-25k range. I currently have Dynaudio Heritage Special stand-mounts. They really are a great speaker in many ways, but full-range they are not. There's an obvious missing element to the music in the <45Hz range. I listen to 95% vinyl, 5% CD (I stream off a Bluesound very occasionally to get ideas for albums to purchase). My system is comprised of a Rega P10 with Hana umami red cart, Modwright PH150 reference phono stage, Oppo 205 disk player all into an Octave V80SE integrated amp with super black box.
My current "leaders" for speakers are Qln Prestige 5 and Devore Gibbon X based on what I've heard, but have liked the Wilson Sabrina Xs and have heard great things about the newer Borresen X3s. Any experiences/recommendations welcome.
Cheers!
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@moto_man While it’s true the Perspectives are not high in sensitivity, if you read John Atkinson’s measurements they don’t drop below 6 Ohms and have very benign phase angles so can still effectively work with tubes. Still a good point to raise though. |
@axeis1 I heard the same thing from the dealer I got my Confidence 30's from. The Octave amps don't have enough grunt to run them , so we traded and he took his 20's back I have the 30's paired with my Sugden Mono blocks. plenty of grunt to drive them. |
Around 2015 I embarked on a similar journey. I lost a bit of money learning how much room, placement, and components affect speakers sound. I decided to follow used speaker value and limited the speakers I would try to speakers I could reasonably resell for my initial outlay and with that model I was able to bring about a half a dozen speakers in the same range you're shopping. By listening to what each brand/model excelled at I was able to figure out what I really liked and I was able to take my time doing it. I learned quite a bit tbh and the closer the speakers came to being tonally correct the longer it took me to hear their shortcomings. Sometimes the best designed speakers disagree with the room or components driving them and I didn't realize initially my speaker budget would have to include different components also, and then how do I deal with that issue? I quit calling 1 speaker better than another because it doesn't work that way. Put in the time! Half the fun is in the hunt anyhow. |
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