2. speakers
  3. 1233121969

Musical full-range in the $3-4K range used?

I have been going back and forth on speakers for awhile now. Looking to get a new pair (used, most likely) and I live in a really remote area with nobody except a B&W dealer nearby. I can't reasonably drive 400 miles round trip to bring speakers back home for audition, and demos at the dealer are sketchy at best. I have a decent sized room (21x14x9) and would like a musical speaker, mostly for jazz, jazz vocals, classical. Full range would be best. My last speaker was a Soliloquy 6.3, which was great in a bigger room, but a little too warm, and not tight enough in the bass for my taste.

I can use it with solid state or tubes, either is fine. I have around $2500 to budget for an integrated amp, but figured it best to find speakers I like, then an amp down the road.

Budget is max $4,000.

Some speakers I have heard at dealers, or have heard good things about:

Coincident (haven't heard these, but lots of good reviews)

Sonus Faber (seemed very musical, easy to listen to)

Tyler Acoustics (again, musical, a touch warm, nice and detailed)

Opera (haven't heard them, reputation is that they are similar to SF)

Aerial Acoustics (heard the 7b, a little flat, but could have been the $1000 integrated powering it: 9 was superb and sounded huge)

Dynaudio (heard the 5.4 at a dealer, but room was poor and speaker sounded thin and lifeless)

Acoustic Zen (haven't heard these)

Thiel (heard the 2.4, sounded really thin)

Devore (dealer is 3 hours away, but might be worth checking out the Super 8)
komaki
mor2bz
41 posts
 
where are you?

sonist

joseph audio

tonian acoustics

KCS

all very nice one advantage of dealing with super small
company is they go the extra yard toinsure that you are
happy. good luck
asa
662 posts
 
Am I assuming that you are saying you have 4K for the speakers and 2.5K for the int amp, or $4k total for all? Assuming the former...

Take a hard look at Vienna Acoustics Beethoven Concert Grands: A pr. just went @$3500 used, but you could proabaly be patient for a bit better price in a few months. Full range, nice cabinets, long range satisfaction factor, not too terribly hard to drive, great vocals and staging. That would leave you an extra $500 for the int amp. At $3000 for an int amp, I would expect the deals to be getting even better towards late summer...if you could scam a Pass or Accuphase that would be berry, berry nice...

Or, get real real and look at some Quad 989's...might not have enough of that classical umpff for you, but you might not care by then. Sound good on relatively cheap gear. If I were you, I'd do the Quads...
jax2
3,031 posts
 
A second vote for Duke's speakers (Audio Kinesis) - they've really impressed me at two shows. A big thumb's up for Coincident - I have Israel's Super Eclipse III's and love'em. Don't have enough experience with the others you've listed to comment.
waltersalas's avatar
waltersalas
939 posts
 

I'll cast a vote for the Piega P10s. Beautiful in piano black, and they sound terrific. I drove several hours to audition a pair a few years ago, and within two hours of listening to all kinds of music, I was writing a check. Other gear has come and gone in my system, but the Piegas remain. If you get a chance to hear them, take it.

Good luck!
shakeydeal
979 posts
 
Walter,

I couldn't have said it better myself. I have had my pair for exactly one year. If you knew my track record with speakers you would acknowledge that that's quite a feat.

Only problem is, they don't come up so often on Agon anymore. Too bad....

Shakey
More to discover