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My Demo results: I feel like I'm at a frustrating block in my speaker journey

Hi all,

New poster and longtime lurker. 

As the title says, I feel like I'm at a frustrating endpoint in my audio quest, and hoping to draw from your guys' experience for some direction.

I bought my first speaker system a couple years ago because at my old house my tv speakers were not cutting it. 

First I bought an old budget pair of Klipsche bookshelves (P15s?  I dont really remember)  They were really shrill, and I sold them fairly quickly. 

After reading a bunch of the mainstream audio review sites (I now understand these platforms are often pay to play) I purchased the ELAC Unifi UF5 Towers.  These had beautiful, lush musical bass but sounded about engaging as energetic as a sponge.  They also had kind of a dark muffled sound at times- like there is a wet blanket over them.   Paradoxically, they also sound inorganic and kind of metallic. 

In the past few months I decided to start demoing speakers to see what I like.  Ive found some speakers that do certain things right, but not everything right.  Every one of the high-end, expensive speakers I have tried have had certain large flaws. I've been kind of shocked at this whole experience, because to my ears my $60 set of logitec computer speakers handily beats a number of speakers 50x more expensive. Like, they dont have great detail retrieval or clarity but at least they dont color the sound a ton, and they present very engagingly.

Im still lookijng for my goldilocks speaker.

  • Various Kefs- very similar to the ELACs but worse imo- very metallic and unengaging
  • Various B&W- Metallic, boring, no dynamics
  • Warfedale Evo 4.4- nice highs!  Absolutely sloppy bass (for my room at least) and terribly muddy mids
  • Tannoy Revolution 6XTE- Similar to above.  Very, very dark speakers.
  • Martin Logan 35XTI bookshelves-  Eureka!  These are much more organic and clear.  Guitars actually sound like guitars instead of a bad digital rendering of them.  Theres energy in what I listen to.  This is what I was missing in the others... things sound like theyre supposed to!   Only issue is they arent as full-bodied as towers.  They just cant play very loud and I wish they had more bass to be better full range speakers.    Somewhat more minor issue is that they sound slightly grainy.  Though thats not a total dealbreaker. 
  • Martin Logan 60XTI Towers- I had high hopes for these.... but where did the magic for the 35s go ML?  These are very "meh".  The highs and satisfying acoustic resonances are gone.
  • Focal Aria 906 bookshelves- holy clarity batman!  But it sounds almost too clinical to the point that theyre not engaging.
  • Focal Aria 948 Towers-  Holy clarity and body batman!  These sound almost perfect- but they dont quite come alive until higher volumes (and I have a small space), and there's still something missing... a certain *zing* in the acoustic guitar resonances. 
  • Def Tech 9060- Hard to describe.  Sometimes they sounded good, sometimes they sounded imprecise and like the drivers were way too small.  Bass gets bloaty in my room.  Theyre also ugly as hell. 
  • Ascend Sierra Tower with RAAL-  After all the others, I had only tthe ML 35XTIs and the focal 948s remaining.  I was hoping, based on my extensive reading of forums, that the ascend towers could give the best of both worlds- the clarity/full body of the focals with the acoustic resonance/energy/zing of the MLs.  Unfortunately I was once again disappointed.  They seem unbalanced to my ears.  Like, they have very punchy bass but they color the sound to be sweet and there seems to be something missing in the middle of the sound.... some body that just isnt there.  The highs are very sweet and engaging, but almost a little artificially so.  Where the MLs sound like an actual acoustic guitar being played in front of me, the Sierras make it sound unnaturally sweet or high.  Theres unnaturally sweet zzzing out of string instruments that I dont think actually sound that way....  Im bummed because I really wanted to like these speakers. 


I think I've established a list of qualities Im looking for:
  • The etched sound of the MLs
  • Full body and clarity of the Focals
  • The forward, engaging nature of the ascends
  • Not overly smooth
  • Not metallic (I dont think I like aluminum tweeters)
  • wide horizontal dispersion (my room is wider than it is long)

Where do I go from here?  Im at a loss.  Id appreciate any recommendations you guys have. 

mjt8
mjt8 OP
5 posts
 
Monkey, thanks for your detailed post!
The vast majority of these demos were in my house using my gear. 

I agree, the tannoys struck me completely different from everything Ive read online.  Like, I didnt even have to spend 10 minutes with them before I boxed them back up.  My wife and I both agreed they sounded terrible in comparison to the focals and ML bookshelves, which were also in the room. 

I like the highs of the focals.  I think a lot of my concern for acoustic resonances might be more in the mids.  I'm not sure.  Like, I found the ascend towers had zing, but not in the way I was necessarily looking for.  I think Im looking for it lower in the register. 

Like, when you listen to an acoustic guitar in person, you're not just listening to the strings being strummed.  There's kind of sharp texture from the fretwork and a woody resonance/percussion from the box itself.  The ML bookshelves are the only speakers that have recreated that faithfully so far to my ears, and I'm not really sure why.  Though the focals are close, tbh. 

I could definitely see the issues being due to our room.  I posted a link to pictures of it in my response to Yogiboy.  I am planning on putting a rug down, but unfortunately there's really no way to flip the room orientation. 


itzhak1969
515 posts
 
From the list of qualities you are looking for you need to check the speakers of  this brands : Magico , Proac ,ATC ,PMC and Spendor. all this brands have wonderful speakers which have the qualities you're looking for . We don't know what gear are you using so it's difficult to give you specific recommendations .
daveyf's avatar
daveyf
2,834 posts
 
Might want to consider that the ultimate sound you get from your speakers is based to a great extent on the synergy they have with your room and upstream gear.
To really get close to the sound of a’live’ acoustic guitar is no easy task for any system, The midrange and high frequency extension ...plus the source ability, really needs to be accurate.
erik_squires
15,640 posts
 
OP:

I think you want Magico and Revels.
bigkidz
3,311 posts
 
Back in the day Sony made a bookshelf speaker model ??? Something like ss-a3r or ar3 I forget.  The dome of the tweeter was an organic substance grown in a lab.   Till this day it is one of the best sounding bookshelf speakers I have ever heard.  That being said, 
the Sony SS-NA5ES Bookshelf speakers if also a great sounding bookshelf.  After that the SS-NA2ES is an excellent floor stander.

Happy Listening.
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