Passive Speaker Recommendations for USA (by @sweetchaos)

[Ron Texas]

My take is the really low end speakers are not worth looking at. Some of the stand outs in the list are the DBR 6.2, Polk R200, LS50 Meta, and R3. Did I miss the M106? If your budget can't support something like the R200 you should be looking at LSR 308's and a cheap balanced DAC.

In the US distribution of the R200 is extremely wide as it is sold by Best Buy. So is KEF these days, but their return policy is very short.

 

[eddantes]

You have F35 an F36 in the wrong price categories - the former is the cheaper speaker... Oh nevermind, I see that they fall under multiple categories. But seems like the F35 shows up where F36 ought to be.

 

[tecnogadget]

Are you doubting Erin’s measurements? Shocked pikachu face.

Do you mean from here?

D'Appolito Style Coaxial vs Single Woofer (R2C vs R3)

You can ask the same question then how would 2way coax beat the actual point source one Full Range driver in a box that doesn't have to fake it, of course FR is more limited in spl and has higher distortion. FR doesn't controll anything, 2way coax doesn't controll the directivity in midrange...

www.audiosciencereview.com

No, there’s not enough data to computer the pref score.

I support Erin and love his work. In fact he went deeply into diagnosing the Shadow Flare on his R3 review. Its just that I got really surprised when I saw his R2C results, because the rest of the response is really smooth (as expected from the 12 gen Uni-Q, and the previous results we got from R3) and then suddenly that sharp and very defined dip (which is better than a bump or resonance). And it doesn’t really correlate or track the provided measurements from KEF or from other users in-room results. I’ve owned 2 units of R2C and never got that response with Umik1 neither horizontally (like I use them) nor vertically (just for testing)…I don’t know the culprit of it, and I may even be wrong, but I can’t help to think maybe something went wrong. Example: Amir did have some discrepancies about bass response and discovered the low temperatures affected measurements…nowadays unless the speakers are made by hand…even the best brands have QC flaws, etc. There could be so many reasons…I regret not having the answers.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

I support Erin and love his work. In fact he went deeply into diagnosing the Shadow Flare on his R3 review. Its just that I got really surprised when I saw his R2C results, because the rest of the response is really smooth (as expected from the 12 gen Uni-Q, and the previous results we got from R3) and then suddenly that sharp and very defined dip (which is better than a bump or resonance). And it doesn’t really correlate or track the provided measurements from KEF or from other users in-room results. I’ve owned 2 units of R2C and never got that response with Umik1 neither horizontally (like I use them) nor vertically (just for testing)

When you said '' nd it doesn’t really correlate or track the provided measurements from KEF or from other users in-room results. '' are you talking about the shadow flare dip?
Because i seen many times in-room measurements from users with that dip, some people ask if they pushed the shadow flare and the answer is a '' i didn't know about it ''

In fact the guy who sell me the R7 didn't know the shadow flare problem, i asked what he dislike about the speaker and he said the mids are too dark or soft, yeah was the shadow flare.

 

[sweetchaos]

@flipflop Thanks. Noted.

@beaRA Thanks, I've completely missed this due to an error in my spreadsheet. Polk S30 becomes top pick under $300/ea, and 2nd place under $350/ea.

@Ron Texas Thanks, added Revel M106 to "Worthy Picks" for it's price class.

@eddantes I see nothing wrong with how they're ranked. Revel F35 is cheaper than F36, so it falls under a cheaper price bracket. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@tecnogadget Take a look at Napilopez's excellent quasi-anechoic guide here. It gets you about 80% of the way in terms of generating spinorama plot vs having the Klippel NFS. If you're willing to test it yourself, it will definitely solve this mystery.

 

[hardisj]

What would be the R2C PS if you compute it from the WhitePaper data instead of Erin’s measurement ? Im still very suspicious of that 2kHz dip, which doesn’t make sense at all (it really looks like an intruder) and haven’t seen that neither on my in-room measurements of two different samples (speaker placed vertical and horizontally) nor from other users. Great work for pulling out this ranking .

Speaker was BNIB from crutchfield. I took it out, listened to it, let it play some multitone for a while. Then on the stand it went. Tested the same way all others are tested. Heated/cooled and insulated garage. Temp at 60-75 degF. Winter to summer. In fact, garage is heating up right now for another speaker test.

Oh, and on Friday I did a few groundplane tests to verify results of a complex tower speaker.

 

[abdo123]

Speaker was BNIB from crutchfield. I took it out, listened to it, let it play some multitone for a while. Then on the stand it went. Tested the same way all others are tested. Heated/cooled and insulated garage. Temp at 60-75 degF. Winter to summer. In fact, garage is heating up right now for another speaker test.

Which one?

 

[hardisj]

Which one?

Patreon exclusive.

 

[abdo123]

Patreon exclusive.

I hope it's the Kii because i'm out of Audio porn.

 

[hardisj]

I hope it's the Kali because i'm out of Audio porn.

That one was tested last week and results posted on my site already.

 

[abdo123]

That one was tested last week and results posted on my site already.

I meant the Kii, sorry it was a typo.

 

[beaRA]

Which one?

Kinda looks like an Emotiva T2+?

 

[sweetchaos]

Improvements:
- Added missing worthy picks for towers, bookshelves. Overall, previously "highly recommended" speakers are now carried forward in price brackets. This expands the number of recommendations as you go up in price brackets.

 

[bravomail]

wow! any chance for subwoofer chart?

 

[sweetchaos]

wow! any chance for subwoofer chart?

Haha, I knew someone would ask.

I guess if there's enough interest I could.

 

[beaRA]

Kinda looks like an Emotiva T2+?

@hardisj do I win a prize? Jk

 

[sweetchaos]

Improvement:
- Added Black Friday deal, JBL Studio 530, which becomes #1 pick under US$250/pair.
- Added upcoming reviews

 

[beaRA]

Improvement:
- Added Black Friday deal, JBL Studio 530, which becomes #1 pick under US$250/pair.
- Added upcoming reviews

It might be a lot to maintain all the Black Friday deals, but the Polk R200 becomes #1 under $700 with its current price.

Edit: The Kef Q350 also takes the under $600 category at $499 currently.

Edit 2: And the Sony SSCS5 takes the under $100 category with a sale price of $90/pair.

 

[amper42]

You better listen to the speakers before you believe the conclusions in this list. I own the Revel M105 and the BMR monitors. In side by side tests the BMR monitors beat the M105 by a mile for clarity, fullness and punch. It's not even a contest.

I also doubt if I bought the Revel 208 and matched it directly against my Revel F328Be that the 208 would be preferred. Logic has me scratching my head on some of these posted recommended results. You could easily prefer a speaker at the bottom of the list or not on the list at all in a direct comparison with the proclaimed speaker in the #1 slot.

 

[Spkrdctr]

So many fantastic speakers at low prices. We live in good speaker times. No reason to buy junk anymore. Some of the low price speakers rate up against others at much higher prices. Too bad I don't need any!