Advice needed: classical music, budget ~$30k

[ClassicalSpeakers]

Interesting idea, @Keith_W. It would have never occurred to me! Interesting too about windows: I didn't know that. I could put the speakers in the room with all the glass. Would that be wise if I used acoustic curtains?

Thanks, @Doodski, for demystifying speaker and electronics pricing. Much appreciated!

 

[Keith_W]

Interesting idea, @Keith_W. It would have never occurred to me! Interesting too about windows: I didn't know that. I could put the speakers in the room with all the glass. Would that be wise if I used acoustic curtains?

You could certainly try. The problem with glass is that it rattles and resonates. Rattling is a problem with the window fixing and tracks. It can be solved by gluing foam or felt so that the window is snug against the frame. Resonating is more difficult, the whole pane of glass resonates at its resonant frequency. It can be solved by adding mass to the window. Or, you could simply open the window which will solve both problems, but that would transmit too much sound to your neighbours and let the cold air in. With glass, acoustic curtains are a good idea.

 

[Waxx]

You could certainly try. The problem with glass is that it rattles and resonates. Rattling is a problem with the window fixing and tracks. It can be solved by gluing foam or felt so that the window is snug against the frame. Resonating is more difficult, the whole pane of glass resonates at its resonant frequency. It can be solved by adding mass to the window. Or, you could simply open the window which will solve both problems, but that would transmit too much sound to your neighbours and let the cold air in. With glass, acoustic curtains are a good idea.

That resonating is also sovlable, with security glass, preferable 3 layers of different thickness. They isolate the inside from the outside more, and don't rattle because there is a layer of PVB-folies in between, and the glass is hardened. So the resoances it takes are way less in amplitude and lower in frequency (mostly out of the passband).

I know this because i just helped to renovate a music room for someone with a floor to ceiling window of 4m high and 2m wide. It used to be normal double glass and resonated a lot (but the room had more problems). Now it's that 3 layers hardened security glas, and even the KH420's, standing a meter in front of it can't make it resonate at high volume (and they go loud). The renovation (also acoustic treatment) of that room (more a hall actually as it's 12x8x5m in size) was expensive, and would take your full budget alone. We tested it this weekend with playing Koyaanisqatsi suite from Philip Glass on high volume with that KH420's, and that intro has organ sounds lower than 30Hz which did not make the glass resonate (the furniture did, not the windows).

The reflection from the windows is a bigger issue i think, and can be tamed a bit with acoustic curtains, but never fully. The question is, is it enough in your case?

 

[Adi777]

That resonating is also sovlable, with security glass, preferable 3 layers of different thickness. They isolate the inside from the outside more, and don't rattle because there is a layer of PVB-folies in between, and the glass is hardened. So the resoances it takes are way less in amplitude and lower in frequency (mostly out of the passband).

I'm curious, how will be in my house in living room. I have 3 layers, if I good remember also different thickness, and more quiet that standard glass.

 

[Adi777]

Philip Glass

Music Philip Glass withous problem with glass? Good

 

[FeddyLost]

Theoretically I'd go for option A - living room.
It's the biggest, has good proportions and a lot of openings for bass leakage if you have massive and rigid walls.
Main downside is that you'll have to put mains somewhere in "front" (where 6' opening is present) corners to avoid significant LR assymetry, and for safety and convenience cables will have to be routed carefully, maybe over the ceiling or inside the floor cable duct.
But without real measurement any simulation of room with window of such size is ... speculative.

 

[MarkS]

i just helped to renovate a music room for someone ... The renovation (also acoustic treatment) of that room (more a hall actually as it's 12x8x5m in size) was expensive, and would take your full budget alone. We tested it this weekend with playing Koyaanisqatsi suite from Philip Glass on high volume with that KH420's ...

KH420's are around $10K/pair. Assuming no subs, that makes the room-evaluation-and-treatment budget at least 3 times higher than the speaker budget.

And, IMO, this is the right ratio. There are plenty of $10K/pair speakers that have excellent measurements, paying more just gets you into audio-woo territory, IMO.

If it was me, I would find a good professional acoustician and ask what can be done with the room (and which room to use!) for $10K to $15K before blowing the whole budget on overpriced overpraised speakers that I audition (with my unprofessional ears) in some totally diferent showroom.

 

[ClassicalSpeakers]

Thanks, @Keith_W and @Waxx, for the tips about glass. Unfortunately, triple paining isn't in the cards for now.

Thank you, @FeddyLost, on the large room. You say it has good proportions--why do you think so other than that it is large? When I put the proportions into the amroc calculator, several of the measures look bad or very bad (like the Bolt-area). I'm not sure, though, how to think about those add-on spaces.

@MarkS--I hear you about room treatments. Unfortunately, I cannot do much in the way of treatments, a combo of WFA and the non-zero chance that we might have to move in a year or two. Of course, an acoustician could help me pick the rooms, arrange the speakers, and figure out if there are any easy treatments that I could get away with.

 

[Rja4000]

Build a multiroom system.

Bluesound or Roon are systems that work pretty well for that. I use second hand Bluesound nodes (first generation, very cheap) as streamers, with digital output. They also work with Roon, if you want to use Roon for room correction.

If you have 30k just for speakers, then you may for sure have a pair of active speakers in each room.
Chose speakers that will sound coherent and include digital input. If not, a cheap $100 DAC will do the job.

I'd go for a pair of 8361 or 8351 on the biggest room and smaller 8341 in the smaller one.
You can't go wrong with any Genelec, unless you want to run VERY loud.

Beware of your ceiling height, which is quite low. I'd use carpets to avoid sound bumping up and down. I guess you may allow that ? (Unless you have a family of furious cats)

More of (very) good sound is much better, in my opinion, than "perfect" sound (which doesn't exist anyway, unless you build your room around the speakers, and not the opposite).

For perfect sound, you may still add to your purchase list a pair of those Dan Clark headphones Amir is raving about.
And a good (and powerful) headphones amp.
You should still be in budget

 

[FeddyLost]

You say it has good proportions--why do you think so other than that it is large? When I put the proportions into the amroc calculator, several of the measures look bad or very bad (like the Bolt-area).

I've used calc at bobgolds.com and even in amroc calc I don't see excessive grouping of eigenmodes.

Size matters just because lowest modes are most problematic and in bigger room you'll be able to position your speakers between troublesome points.
In almost any small room you'll find out that notching out modal issues is a must while in big room you have chances of relative success in case of just big bassy mains.

And don't forget that you'll need to maintain some distance to speakers from all walls and main listening point.
For midfield monitors you'll need to place speakers and LP into some equilateral triangle with side of 8-10 feet. Any really big hifi speakers also require some distance unless they are coaxial.
So, bigger room provides more options unless it's a some cube.

I'm not a professional acoustician, of course, and maybe you'll be ok with some Genelec Ones in smaller room corrected with GLM, but if you'll have a crush on anything sized like KH420 after audition, you'll barely cram it into B or C.

 

[McGillroy]

KH420's are around $10K/pair. Assuming no subs, that makes the room-evaluation-and-treatment budget at least 3 times higher than the speaker budget.

And, IMO, this is the right ratio.

This is very sound advice! Spending on getting good RI-values will net you the most return for your money. Especially deep and clean bass is impossible without good room treatment.

Soundstaging too will improve.

Last not least unlike DSP-based room correction your acoustic won't obsolete.

Once the physical properties are within certain parameters you are good. Just like a good concert hall or studio your room will stay like that for decades and make anything you put in there sound good.

There's plenty of excellent speakers in the 10k range, the 420 among them and they would be my first choice followed by Geithain 921ks.

 

[Willem]

My music is largely a mix of classical from Bach to Strawinsky and jazz of various periods. I also use the stereo system for TV/video sound such as opera or ballet recordings, and movies. Our living room is of more or less comparable size, and similarly has open connections to other rooms. The speakers are Quad electrostats, and in my view they are the most transparent speakers money can buy. The music does not seem to originate from any speakers, but it is 'in the room". They have two limitations: the first is maximum spl, and the second is bass extension. Both can be addressed by using multiple subwoofers and highpassing the main speakers.
The Quad electrostats are dipoles, so they do not interact as much with the room. Therefore in my experience fancy equalization of the main speakers is unnecessary (for that I only use a few filters on my RME ADI-2 DAC in the range 100-250 Hz), but fancy dsp room eq of the subs is very worthwhile. Multi Sub Optimizer is the way to go for that.

 

[ahofer]

At that price point, I'd also listen to the Bowers & Wilkins 800 series:

800 Series

Bowers & Wilkins

www.bowerswilkins.com

I would not, based on measurements. But if you do, do it for a while, and decide if you can live with that showroom treble.

 

[ClassicalSpeakers]

I appreciate the comments about getting the room right, and I agree with the message. Unfortunately, though, room treatments of much significance are an impossibility for at least a few years. I am left wondering then if I should even invest in speakers at all, as much as I prefer their sound to headphones, or just wait until I am at a time in life where I can get the room right and then get speakers.

 

[MarcT]

I appreciate the comments about getting the room right, and I agree with the message. Unfortunately, though, room treatments of much significance are an impossibility for at least a few years. I am left wondering then if I should even invest in speakers at all, as much as I prefer their sound to headphones, or just wait until I am at a time in life where I can get the room right and then get speakers.

I will say, I've heard people here and on other forums argue strongly in favor of getting certain speakers over others specifically because they have superior design and characteristics, such as dispersion, which make them a better choice for rooms that are problematic. I would not let "perfection" get in the way of the "good". Extensive room treatments are just not in the cards for some people, perhaps because of WAF or other factors.

 

[MarkS]

Just buy some modest speakers, stick them in the room, and enjoy them!

I absolutely love my Goldenear Triton 7's, which cost $2K per pair. I have not treated my room at all.

I've heard plenty of megabuck systems, and yet I am perfectly happy with my Tritons.

 

[617]

Good speakers are, to a larger degree, room invariant. This means that their chief design goal is to offer a smooth off-axis response in any room. All of the speakers praised by ASR are room invariant in this sense.

Among room-invariant speakers, some are widely dispersing, and some are narrow. Narrowly dispersing speakers are either cardioid designs like the dutch + dutch, genelecs, Kiis, or have big waveguides, like the JBL M2, the JBL 705 and 708, and many others. Narrow dispersion speakers will tend to have a more focused, less atmospheric sound, but with great clarity. They are better for small rooms in my experience, and I would point you in that direction for your space.

Wider dispersion speakers are typically conventional designs, most often 3 or 4 ways, such as all Revel designs, the Neumann 3 ways, KEF coaxials, and dipole designs such as the LX 521. These are excellent speakers but they will probably be impacted by the room more than narrow dispersing speakers.

Neither approach is better. Narrow is probably preferable for some professional use, but many people enjoy a more atmospheric presentation. JBL makes both - professional speakers like the M2, and then audiophile speakers like the Revel offerings.

If you don't want to deal with room treatment I would highly recommend one of the narrowly dispersing speakers I mentioned above, especially an active design which has some ability to adjust HF response to match the amount of damping in your room from upholstery and carpets and so on.

 

[Keith_W]

I will say, I've heard people here and on other forums argue strongly in favor of getting certain speakers over others specifically because they have superior design and characteristics, such as dispersion, which make them a better choice for rooms that are problematic. I would not let "perfection" get in the way of the "good". Extensive room treatments are just not in the cards for some people, perhaps because of WAF or other factors.

Very good point - do not let "perfection" get in the way of "good". Very few people have a "perfect" system, but all of us (who hang around audio forums) aspire to it. We are very much the minority. The vast majority of people buy the first speakers they audition, slap them somewhere in the room, and get enjoyment out of it. The audio system my parents had when I was a kid was certainly like that - only the turntable was visible and the speakers and the rest of the electronics were under a table and covered in tablecloth.

All of us know that $30k on a system is not money well spent if it is not set up correctly. So if you come here for advice, what you will hear is what each of us would do if we had $30k to spend and how we would set it up, and we would want to set it up in the best possible way that we know how. Believe me, the potential result you could get for $30k and in the rooms you showed us is astounding if you do it right. But if you have other things to consider that are more important, you could still get enjoyable sound for less than $5k.

 

[kongwee]

Go to hifi show since you have that budget. At least get the feel, what size of speaker fit what kind of room. You will not lack of demo playing classical music. Normally, I will go for bigger room. Off wall, triangle sweet spot is easier to setup and move around. Don't need to fill the room with sound too.

 

[Waxx]

Good speakers are, to a larger degree, room invariant. This means that their chief design goal is to offer a smooth off-axis response in any room. All of the speakers praised by ASR are room invariant in this sense.

Among room-invariant speakers, some are widely dispersing, and some are narrow. Narrowly dispersing speakers are either cardioid designs like the dutch + dutch, genelecs, Kiis, or have big waveguides, like the JBL M2, the JBL 705 and 708, and many others. Narrow dispersion speakers will tend to have a more focused, less atmospheric sound, but with great clarity. They are better for small rooms in my experience, and I would point you in that direction for your space.

Wider dispersion speakers are typically conventional designs, most often 3 or 4 ways, such as all Revel designs, the Neumann 3 ways, KEF coaxials, and dipole designs such as the LX 521. These are excellent speakers but they will probably be impacted by the room more than narrow dispersing speakers.

Neither approach is better. Narrow is probably preferable for some professional use, but many people enjoy a more atmospheric presentation. JBL makes both - professional speakers like the M2, and then audiophile speakers like the Revel offerings.

If you don't want to deal with room treatment I would highly recommend one of the narrowly dispersing speakers I mentioned above, especially an active design which has some ability to adjust HF response to match the amount of damping in your room from upholstery and carpets and so on.

I think any speaker will have issues with room without room correction or even better, acoustic treatment. And the Genelec 8361A that you say has narrow dispertion has exact the same dispertion as the Neumann KH420 that you describe as wide dispertion. they are 55° flat as shown here in measurements by Amir.

I think the best you can do if you can't do acoustics, is buying a good dsp with dirac or similar room correction software and use the speakers you want, in my case that would be the Neumanns like said, that will have a more profound effect than just trying to do it with so called cardioide speakers. Genelec isn't that, only the Kii and the D&D are because they are build with the necesairly processing to get that effect. And even those have no directivity below 100Hz, where mostly the biggest issues are....

So even those benefit from acoustic treatment or room correction software if you want an absolute neutral sound over the full range and minimise room effects.

But i think, certainly for classical music, that a massive ammount of headroom is way more important to deal with the big dynamics of classical music. That's why it's better to have a speaker that is way to powerfull for what you need. The D&D is not like that, it runs out of steam at 106dB, so if you take 20dB headroom (needed for classical) it's only good undistorted to about 86dB. I think for classical 110dB (or 90dB with 20dB headroom) is needed to have a realistic sound level mimicing a live performance, hence my preference for the KH420 over most. The JBL M2 and it's hifi equivalent is also good, but harder sounding and maybe too big for those rooms of the OP.