Warm airy musical speakers?


I am a newbie to Hifi. Well I have been reading on forums on and off for the last 5 years, but never had any system myself.

I'm a musician myself and have an idea of what type of sound I'm looking for. It is a warm, airy, open and organic sound with good midrange for vocals. Listen to jazz, acoustic music, norah jones, Diana Krall etc..

I don't like a cold and bright type of sound.

I've read alot of sonus faber, venere 1.5/2.0. Could be that kind of speaker I'm looking for?! Also I have read about focal aria 906. Seems to get great reviews.

I live far off any hifi-stores so I thought I will collect some good candidates for listening, when I visit a bigger city.

My budget is around $2000 - $2300 for both speaker and amplifier. New or used doesn't matter. For an amplifier I'm interested in tubes..

All recommendations are welcome!
philsons

Showing 2 responses by mapman

Be sure to take in account how the speakers will fit into your room both physically and acoustically. Gettting the room/speaker match as good as possible should be top consideration. What sounds good or right in store may well not at home in a different room and vice versa. Get this right first as best possible and the rest can fall into place a lot easier. Room factors to consider are size/volume (larger rooms require more speaker of good quality for good extended bass in particular in general, smaller rooms are easier and most good quality monitors might fit there well.

NExt is amp needed to get the most out of the speaker. More power versus less almost always helps at this point, unless speakers are higher efficiency (low to mid nineties or higher). Smaller speakers capable of good bass in large rooms will always require as much good clean amp power as you can throw at them to sound their best. Larger higher efficiency speakers can do more especially in the bass in larger rooms with much less power in some cases.

After that, just stick to good quality (not cheap, not the most expensive necessarily) components from well regarded companies and you are in good shape, mostly tweaking to personal tastes and preferences from there, espeically with modern digital gear.

If you introduce any tubes in the system, make sure component impedance specs are suitable to work well with higher output impedance (normally) tube gear. More care is needed when tubes become part of the formula. Expect to pay a premium for total cost of ownership with tube gear. I would not start with tubes myself, rather try to get it right with good quality SS gear first and then see what might be of interest down the road if needed.
Yes, can't go wrong building around Dynaudio speakers for warm and airy.

Not that they are overtly warm, they are not , they are reasonably neutral in general, but may tend slightly in that direction depending on setup.

I'd say the Esotar tweeters used in the Dynaudios are a lot of what might make them special in your case. Air comes mostly from clean and extended treble into the highest frequencies, and the Dynaudios and Esotar tweeter they use are exceptionally good in this regard.

Just make sure your budget can cover a good quality amp of 80 watts or more with good current delivery specifications, in other words abe to double power output as much as possible from 8 to 4 ohms.