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Speaker choice - Neumann, Dutch & Dutch, KEF

richard12511

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Thank you for sharing this video. Those Grimm LS1be sounded incredible. Definitely end game system. Wow!

Note that the Grimm speakers were played ~4dB louder than the D&D speakers, which I’m guessing accounts for most or all of the difference.
 

jhaider

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  • KEF R2C with grills x 3 (left, center, right) + 3 KEF T2 subs behind the entertainment center
    • Have to solve problem of 3 channel sound processing and amplification. Not much room inside the new media center we are getting.
    • Sealed, and relatively short (7" tall) so they should not be visually dominating or hard to integrate with subs
    • Sub solution is less than optimal.
I’m inclined to agree with @napilopez generally here, but it’s worth noting that other companies do shallow subs, too. One that springs to mind is Leon Speakers, who put a finely crafted box around a solid SB Acoustics subwoofer driver. There’s also @sigbergaudio, who I believe use a ScanSpeak driver and Hypex amp. The KEF subs could also be perfectly fine. I’ve not heard this model, but the old UFO shaped passive radiator one with Icepower amps is excellent above its 40Hz tuning. It has clean response to up 250Hz or so.
 

bo_knows

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Note that the Grimm speakers were played ~4dB louder than the D&D speakers, which I’m guessing accounts for most or all of the difference.
I watched the video several times and yes that was brought up. Just look at the panelist's heads when they stop playing Grimm's. That tells you the whole story. The only thing I couldn't tell from the sound clip(s) was the imaging of those speakers but details and bass on Grimm LS1be couldn't be matched. I listened to the video via my Sennheiser HD660S and KEF LS50W. When listened to Grimm's playing over my KEF LS50's, I had goosebumps on 2 songs.
 

Senior NEET Engineer

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Dutch 8C won't help much with the room. You need something with narrow dispersion in upper frequencies like a Martin Logan electrostatic to accomplish that.

Another option is Sonos Five and Sub. They come in white and work great for living room setup. Not as good in sound, but better balanced in aesthetics and usability.
 
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HooStat

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IMHO, you’re missing out by letting the cabinet colour dictate in a sound experiment. The KH420 is a full range contender.
‘Are you looking at white Genelecs?
I have been advised that there is only one right color choice. Black. And not the "dark grey" that Neumann uses. There are always compromises when more than 1 person is making decisions! :)
 
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HooStat

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Dutch 8C won't help much with the room. You need something with narrow dispersion in upper frequencies like a Martin Logan electrostatic to accomplish that.

Another option is Sonos Five and Sub. They come in white and work great for living room setup. Not as good in sound, but better balanced in aesthetics and usability.

The room is actually not awful. The wall to the left of the picture is about 15' away. To the other side it is completely open through the kitchen -- practically speaking there is no reflection from that side. The ceiling is sloped up at 45" (vaulted ceiling). The main problem is that we sit against the back wall, but I can't fix that. There is a picture (canvas, no glass) behind us.

But electrostatics won't work in any event for a myriad of reasons. I appreciate the suggestion though.
 
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HooStat

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One that springs to mind is Leon Speakers, who put a finely crafted box around a solid SB Acoustics subwoofer driver. There’s also @sigbergaudio, who I believe use a ScanSpeak driver and Hypex amp.
Very interesting on the Leon sub. I have not seen that before. I need to find some more information about it -- how did you determine that it is an SB Acoustics driver? I didn't see that on their website, but I didn't read everything either. That could be a great solution for a sub.
 

stevenswall

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Small consideration for most people:

If you ever sit on the floor, play video games closer to the TV, or sit at different vertical positions, or get up to get water, coincident/coaxial drivers are less jarring. If sudden 6dB jumps in bass and treble don't matter as you move around the room and you're not dealing with ceiling and floor reflections then it doesn't matter, but I notice speakers that aren't coaxial, and especially speakers that don't have waveguides, sound broken when my head is too high or too low.

Other suggestion for a smaller budget: is size and aesthetics became even more of a concern And you were looking for something cheaper, the Devialet Phantom Reactors look great in matte black, are very small but have good bass, and you might be able to get Devialet to send you the installer versions so you don't have to use their app.
 
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HooStat

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Other suggestion for a smaller budget: is size and aesthetics became even more of a concern And you were looking for something cheaper, the Devialet Phantom Reactors look great in matte black, are very small but have good bass, and you might be able to get Devialet to send you the installer versions so you don't have to use their app.
Those would work too. I wasn't able to get a demo when I went to a local Best Buy that carried them. 3x Devialet Phantom is a good idea. Thanks.
 

onion

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I think the Devialets used to have latency problems that made movies difficult. Don't know if that's been solved yet
 

jhaider

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I need to find some more information about it -- how did you determine that it is an SB Acoustics driver?

I looked at it. The SB shallow woofer is visually unique, both in a way that would be cheap to copy (dustcap damping ring) and in a way that would be expensive to copy (dished mounting flange).

Aaros-A10-UT-Subwoofer-Hero-sm.jpg


SB Acoustics shallow subwoofer drive unit.

Leon is one of those companies that targets the custom installation market more than the audiophile market, which is why you've likely never heard of them. I wouldn't have either, had I not noticed their in-wall speakers with Seas woven poly cone woofers at a show and struck up a conversation with their rep.

There likely are a number of similar products from similar companies. This SB woofer seems to have largely replaced the venerable Peerless XLS10 in shallow subs from CI-focused brands. Possible reasons are price, performance, or availability as Tymphany's successor model has a deeper bumped backplate (still no pole vent, unlike SB, so practically mounting depth requirements may be the same). ScanSpeak's ScanSpeak's post-breakup-with-Tymphany XLS10 variant also has the bumped backplate. XLS/Discovery is another visually obvious woofer family, because of the facet on the mounting flange.
 
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HooStat

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There likely are a number of similar products from similar companies.
I noticed that Triad also has a 10" shallow sub. I wonder if it is the same driver. But this is good to know. It might help solve the sub issue.
 

jhaider

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I noticed that Triad also has a 10" shallow sub. I wonder if it is the same driver. But this is good to know. It might help solve the sub issue.

I would expect it is. Triad is another one of those CI focused companies with limited audiophile visibility, who generally use good drive units from the common OEMs and make solid cabinets. Both of them may have minor changes to the soft parts compared to one of the OEM versions so they can have their own part number, but unlikely to be anything material.

While I wouldn't buy a mains speaker based on knowledge of the drive units, subwoofers are so much simpler devices - a good driver in a well built cabinet and sufficient power, and you're there. Speaking of which, I'm not sure how shallow @Duke's "Swarm" subs are, or if that's adjustable, but they may be adaptable to your situation as well.

Note that the amplifiers sold with these subwoofers usually include frequency shaping. Due to the large amount of EQ required to get deep bass in a small cabinet, you should use the partnering amp to drive them. Dirac et al. can't and shouldn't apply that much boost.

I don't know your budget, but if you're doing on-wall, your processor is TBD, and your budget is high, a Lyngdorf setup may be worth considering. Their concept is small on-wall speakers augmented by "boundary woofers" for headroom and extension, stitched together using their proprietary RoomPerfect software. FWIW, I haven't heard their speakers but my review of their MP-60 AVP should be published in the very near future.
 

BrokenEnglishGuy

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why not kef r3 + dual rel t9i + mini dsp ? maybe + KEF R2C
I saw you have the speakers in that place... i think you need stands for the bookshelfs..
 
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HooStat

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Speaking of which, I'm not sure how shallow @Duke's "Swarm" subs are, or if that's adjustable, but they may be adaptable to your situation as well.
From what I understand the Swarm is a pretty cool implementation of multiple subs. But it requires multiple reasonably sized subs and I can't get away with that, regardless of how nicely they are finished. If I had planned ahead about a year ago, I might have been able to do something.
 
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HooStat

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why not kef r3 + dual rel t9i + mini dsp ? maybe + KEF R2C
I saw you have the speakers in that place... i think you need stands for the bookshelfs..
KEF speakers are very nice, and the mini-DSP makes sense. I think I would have to go with some of the slim subs discussed above.

Along these lines, the Revel C208 center would work if I want to deal with subs.
 

Duke

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I'm not sure how shallow @Duke's "Swarm" subs are, or if that's adjustable, but they may be adaptable to your situation as well.

Thanks for the mention!!

The footprint of the Swarm units are 12" square, so too deep for this application.

@sigbergaudio comes to mind. Their Inkognito 10 subwoofer is only a little over 6" deep(!) and the Inkognito 12 is still under 7" deep(!!). In my opinion both are very well thought-out, and are optimized for this sort of application.

Note that the amplifiers sold with these subwoofers usually include frequency shaping. Due to the large amount of EQ required to get deep bass in a small cabinet, you should use the partnering amp to drive them.

For the record the Swarm does not rely on response shaping for its claimed low-end extension, which arguably makes life a bit easier on the woofer and amplifier. The Swarm uses low-tuned vented boxes whose native response is the approximate inverse of "typical" room gain due to boundary reinforcement. Several passive adjustments are possible, and the amplifier does include a single band of parametric EQ just in case.

From what I understand the Swarm is a pretty cool implementation of multiple subs. But it requires multiple reasonably sized subs and I can't get away with that, regardless of how nicely they are finished. If I had planned ahead about a year ago, I might have been able to do something.

I have customers who use two of the Swarm units as speaker stands, and I'm developing a version with a down-firing sub to keep the vibrations in the vertical plane. I also have customers who place one or two of their Swarm units atop a bookshelf, such that they don't take up any additional floor space. Not trying to talk you into risking a divorce! Just sayin' that their placement is pretty flexible.
 
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HooStat

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@sigbergaudio comes to mind. Their Inkognito 10 subwoofer is only a little over 6" deep(!) and the Inkognito 12 is still under 7" deep(!!). In my opinion both are very well thought-out, and are optimized for this sort of application.

I thought about that, but the subs are just too expensive for my application. And they don't have a US presence at the moment. For an expensive item that is heavy and hard to ship, it makes it a tough choice. But I will say that I absolutely love the product from what I have seen, and I think it would work well in my application. I hope @sigbergaudio does well.

I have customers who use two of the Swarm units as speaker stands, and I'm developing a version with a down-firing sub to keep the vibrations in the vertical plane. I also have customers who place one or two of their Swarm units atop a bookshelf, such that they don't take up any additional floor space. Not trying to talk you into risking a divorce! Just sayin' that their placement is pretty flexible.

It is hard to combine aesthetic considerations and to get great sound. I am trying to stay away from extra boxes in the room, and from speaker stands. Basically, I get the area around the TV (under and to the sides and behind the cabinet).

If I am being 100% honest, the cleanest approach is the DD 8C (as @napilopez mentioned). They match the new media cabinet (black oak), I think they will handle low bass better than the Genelec 8351b (could be wrong here), and the tweeter is at the optimal height (the new media cabinet is 24" tall). I just have to get the digital signal into the speakers and I am done. I don't even need an electronics -- my TV will give me the 2.0 out (but I would have to convert either HDMI or Toslink to AES/EBU). But for a little over $12k, they are really expensive, possibly less reliable than Genelec, and may not hold their value in 5 years.

For the same budget, I can get 3x Genelec 8351b or 3x 8341a or 2x 8351b + 1x 8341a, but I need to solve the multichannel signal issue (maybe not terrible) and the speakers will be a little low (probably easy enough to tilt them up slightly), and they will blend a little worse with the decor (subjective). With Genelec, I can always sell them if it doesn't work out because they hold their value really well. That has always been one of my rules of audio purchasing -- buy something you can easily sell if it doesn't work out.

And there is KEF too -- the subs are the hassle there. Everything else is dead simple and clean.
 

BrokenEnglishGuy

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KEF speakers are very nice, and the mini-DSP makes sense. I think I would have to go with some of the slim subs discussed above.

Along these lines, the Revel C208 center would work if I want to deal with subs.
Yup, also the t7i is smaller and KEF K92 look really nice too. Also you can set the Subs with DiracLive or something like that
 
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