Totem Sttaf
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Another +1 on the Proac D15. I heard them a few years ago and loved them. I don't remember what came up but I ended up not buying them. I regretted it until I ended up with a pair of Proac Response D2 monitors (for a smaller room). Those D15 sounded wonderful, never got that sound out of my head and wish I'd bought them. |
I keep looking for speakers to replace my Preludes (for no reason, and much more money), and I can't do it. Although opinions vary, I think putting great gear in front of these can, and does for me anyway, work very well. I have these on little butcher blocks and Vibrapods (seriously...Vibrapods...) which raises them up maybe 4 inches, and I use an old REL Q150e and a tube amp with them. Absolutely great sounding combination in my room anyway, and I like tweeters with little screens on them for finger poke protection. Something about the small baffle mini monitor presentation of these maybe has something to do with their astounding imaging, but they kick ass....also Alan Yun personally told me to single wire these for "proper coherence" (his words). He was right of course. |
The Prelude Plus is pretty dissimilar to the Prelude...no metal woofers, no screen on the soft dome tweeter (maybe I worry about that too much, but still...), although I bet they sound great. I would like to get my regular Preludes covered in striped ebony veneer...maybe my local high school wood shop! |
I have some Infinity IL 30s...small 2 ways...in a budget system ...and have always enjoyed their punchy, bass.. not the overly warm, boomy bass that can sometimes plagues larger speakers....I always felt a 6 inch 2 way the way to go...they don't require stands...image well...and provide enough bass they don't sound thin... |
10-22-13: TbromgardI also am considering various speakers in the $2K range and started looking at the Prelude Plus. I would be putting them in a 13x23 living room with high ceiling and facing an open architecture into the front hall and dining area. They would have a wall behind them for bass reinforcement with that rear-firing port. I also have a couple of nice little 8" subs I can put with them to augment the bass down to around 36 Hz. Under those conditions, do you think the PPs be up to filling an area that size without straining? I listen to a lot of acoustic music (vocals, jazz) and also large scale symphonic, but not at headbanging levels. Do you think the Prelude Plus would be up to that size space? |
Much as I love my love my Preludes I think a room that big is pushing it for Symphonic music. IF you can integrate the subs maybe, but that's something I've never been able to do myself for classical, you might get the bass response that is so essential in Symphonic , but the "tunefulness" is another matter. I tried them myself in a room that size, the magic they had/have in a 13x 12 room was largely missing. I might look towards PSB or KEF myself. FYI-Preludes themselves get down into 30's . |
My 10 year old REL Q150e integrates very well with the Preludes in my medium-large listening room, they sound great playing classical music with the REL providing that "room charge" they do so well, and I have to wonder how people actually listen to systems in large rooms? Do you sit 40 feet away across the room from the system and try to get it up to 115 db? If your system is more or less along a wall (with proper speaker placement somewhat away from that wall), and your butt is in reasonable proximity to the speakers, what effect does that large room have? Ambient squeaking from the butler's loafers? Cuban cigar smoke fogging the highs? The dreaded "flapping tapestries?" The maid's feather duster absorbing some detail? Those damn downstairs workers clanging pots and getting arrested for crimes for which they are innocent and eventually returning to work to bathe in the intrigue of early 20th century England? That last one might be extreme...but anyway... |
WOlf, I use the OHM F5 series 3 speakers in my fairly large L shaped room. The OHMs are essentially omnidirectional and sound similar form most any location in front of them. They are located in teh bottom of the L, 5 feet or more from closest walls. I listen from anywhere within the length of the L in front of them. The differences are in line with those one would hear from different locations in the same room were there a live act performing up front. The main thing that changes is perspective and width and depth of soundstage, not tonality. Sometimes I sit in the front row, either dead center or off to the left or right outside the closest speaker, sometimes I stand all the way in the rear just to soak it all in. My preferred listening position is about 8-10 feet in front of teh right speaker. That's more or less like sitting about 1/3 of the way back in your favorite jazzclub. My room is closest to layout and sound to the Village Vanguard in NYC of all the places I have been that anyone might have heard of. No butler or tapestries, and my wife and daughter would have my head if I smoked a cuban cigar down there, so can't comment on that one. I do like to play it loud from time to time but also trying to preserve my 50+ year old hearing still. :^) |
My favorite jazz club is in late 70's early 80's Honolulu, so I can no longer sit there, and nearby Boston jazz clubs...meh. No butler or tapestries? Man...how do people live like that? My 62 year old "abused by guitar amps" hearing is beyond preservation, but I still get hired to mix concerts (amazingly)...and still abuse it with guitar amps (and motorcycle wind noise when I don't ride with earplugs...with a quiet-ish helmet even)...some of us never learn. Still, I like saying "flapping tapestries." |
Wolf: You make some good points and address something I didn't mention. Although the total open space is large, the speakers would have a solid wall behind them (2-4 feet away) and the Prelude Pluses have a rear-firing port. Also, I generally listen from around 6-9 feet away, so the speakers don't have to crank too hard for me to hear them well. Also, sub integration has not been a problem for me either. I have a pair of Mirage MM8s, which were designed to blend well with satellites and small towers. They are sealed enclosures with 380/1200 watts rms/peak driving an 8" aluminum cone with linear high excursion surround, and augmented by two matching passive radiators. They don't go all that low (about 36 Hz), but they fill in where small speakers start rolling off and they are very fast and have continuously variable controls for 0-180 deg. phase, volume, and crossover frequency ranging from 50-250 Hz. They add just the right oomph for speakers whose bass doesn't quite fill out the space. Mapman: My current speakers are Mirage OM-15s, which are omnidirectional floorstanders. My experience with their uniform tonal balance and soundstage throughout the room matches yours. Since Klipsch has gutted Mirage, discontinued the brand and no longer makes replacement parts I figured it's time to move on. I found that if a speaker has excellent and uniform dispersion and in-room power response, the soundfield is similar enough to an omni that I could get along with it well. The Prelude Pluses, with their very small woofers, should not have a room suckout when handing off to the tweeters. The narrow baffles should provide pinpoint diffraction-free dispersion, and the rear-firing port should balance out the bottom end. Add the subs and they should do OK in my large space, especially if I'm listening within 6-9 feet most of the time. I'm also considering the Odyssey Lorelei, Ascend Sierra Tower, Salk SoundTower, Gallo Classico 3 or 4, and Magnepan 1.7s. The Magnepans obviously have different placement issues, but have such an addictive see-through sound. If anybody knows of a dynamic tower that approaches that 3-dimensional transparency free of boxy resonances, let me know. |
"If anybody knows of a dynamic tower that approaches that 3-dimensional transparency free of boxy resonances, let me know." Vandersteen. Anything from the Model 2's on up. The 1's are great but it looks like you can afford the 2's from your list of other choices. You don't have the box colorations, but you also don't have the panel colorations either. I put the 2's next to my 1.7's, and there was no comparison. There was not one thing they could do better than the 2's. The only thing is that you need to match them with good equipment and place them properly for best results. If you follow the instructions, you'll be OK. |
If you mean the OP, he hasn't weighed in once since starting the thread. The Quad 23L Classic is also a sweet, musical speaker. About 36.4"h x 9"w x 12.4"d. |
As an aside, it's interesting to me that the regular Prelude is unique in the Silverline speaker lineup...the 3.75" metal woofers don't show up in anything else they make, the metal tweeter with its screen and rubber deflection pad thing doesn't either...a clean, no screws visable front is also cool, and somewhat rare...the new Prelude Plus, although certain to sound fine, seems simply like another pile of bolted-on drivers in a skinny veneered box waiting for somebody to poke the tweeter. How hard would it have been to use a magnet attached grill? |