Recommend a forward speaker

i've got a lot of suggestions on both audiogon and audioasylum. before jumping onto a new speaker purchase, i've decided to do a bunch of auditioning of speakers that might be more my liking and are also within relatively close geographic proximity to me.

i've also turned the bass cabinets around, so the woofers fire forward, and removed the washers that were tilting the back of the speaker forward. this has helped some. actually, it's help quite a bit, but before i go off and say "this is great!" i want to listen. my experience is that long term listening exposes the speaker.

i've also been listening to a lot of different cds, and the recordings really vary alot in how they present the soundstage. yes, my eva cassidy cd is actually perfect. this is exactly the presentation i love. i feel like she's right there, and she even has a little bite in her voice when she pushes it. exhilarating! i also have a stevie wonder (fulfillingness) album that sounds awesome.

so, the repositioning will hold me over. and the auditions i think are a constructive way forward without getting myself into more trouble. system synergy is such a huge deal. a new speaker could really cause all kinds of mayhem.

Duke,

Correct - I didn't quote you - my mistake. My comment was more related to how you consider a narrow dispersion is more of a forward presentation than a wide dispersion...I beg to disagree on that one that is all. However, as Newbee suggests ....there is a lot to a convincing forward or far presentation, it is a combination of many things and dispersion isn't the whole story by far....

12-14-07: Dennis_the_menace

my experience is that long term listening exposes the speaker.

It always will, or does the sound just become stale? That's why most folks here rotate gear so much, to avoid long term listening.

Cheers,
John

John, A very interesting observation about why people rotate gear! Something I've done more out of curiosity than anything else.

But I think its not so much about the need for change to avoid long term listening as the failure of something you've bought to meet your preconcieved, but not necessarily realized, notions of what you want your system to sound like before you bought.

As it may well be the case with Dennis. He feels he doesn't have what he wants soundstage wise and he attributes it to the Verities (as opposed to his choice of ancillaries and set up) and it may well be so, or it may simply not be achievable. BUT what also is in play is that priorities change as one become accoustomed to listening to something new, either for the better or worse.

For example, at one time I couldn't really 'hear' the absence of well defined depth of pin point imaging - now I can, at one time I couldn't distinguish true resolution from tilted up frequencies, now I can. Having reached that level of experience I cannot ignor their absence in equipment including speakers (and set up), and electronics. Equipment I found acceptable 20 years ago might not be so today. We change and we grow.

I think Dennis is wise in his present decision to audition in his own home speakers/set up/ancillaries and see where he ends up. Frankly, he may find out why so many folks own and love the Verities, and find them difficult to improve on in any meaningful way - absent a specific need. He may even come to understand better the imaging issues that he brought up in this thread. (In the long run I felt that the imaging at the plane of the fronts of the speakers was more artificial than listening to a recessed stage and contrary to live experiences. And, for some reason, also shortened the sense of true depth which might otherwise be on the recording).

Facinating stuff......this is one road many of us travel with no clear understanding of where we are going to end up until we get there or run out of gas.

i've also been listening to a lot of different cds, and the recordings really vary alot in how they present the soundstage

Isn't that what an audiophile quality system supposed to do? Are you trying to make records that sound one way sound a different way?