State of the Art passive full-range speakers?

[chouca]

Leather is okay too. Natural material for decor and engineering materials for function and I hope we can still keep it that way.

Agreed! Sonus Faber uses leather beautifully. The whole balance of wood, metal, and leather is masterful.

 

[srrxr71]

At this point I've read so many reviews of the Blades that wax poetic about their ability to disappear that I have to wonder: what other speakers can disappear similarly?


Agreed! Sonus Faber uses leather beautifully. The whole balance of wood, metal, and leather is masterful.

Classy.

Also yes I may been harsh on metal but metal can be very decorative. The right metal. Not aluminum. It’s just not for me.

 

[steve59]

since moving on from my 25 year old Kef R105/3 I owned (all bought and sold used) Revel F52, Salon 1, Salon 2, VA Strauss, Usher Be 20 DMD. Paradigm Persona 7f, Meridian DSP 8000se, and for the last 2 years Kef Blade. I home demoed the Focal Kanta 3 and perlisten S7t. My room is 7'x17'x27' and i used a hegel h360 for most of the speakers. The ushers and meridians bass was overpowering for my room, the salon 1 tweeter wasn't as good at pulling out the softer notes, Strauss were great fun, but sounded a bit thick in upper bass/lower mids. Perlisten are special, and my only knock on them was the size of the stage and listening window was small, the kanta's had no bass below 100hz and i don't use subs in my 2 channel system. I've heard the persona 7f sound amazing and the salon 2 had the reputation, but with my h360 they merely sounded good and I wasn't ready to go on a component hunt.
Kef Blades sounded the best with the h360 and when I tried the h590 bass got even tighter, but I still had to turn them up to really appreciate how good they could be. a few months ago I added the Mc 611's and now the speakers open up ay even low volumes.

 

[Rick Sykora]

since moving on from my 25 year old Kef R105/3 I owned (all bought and sold used) Revel F52, Salon 1, Salon 2, VA Strauss, Usher Be 20 DMD. Paradigm Persona 7f, Meridian DSP 8000se, and for the last 2 years Kef Blade. I home demoed the Focal Kanta 3 and perlisten S7t. My room is 7'x17'x27' and i used a hegel h360 for most of the speakers. The ushers and meridians bass was overpowering for my room, the salon 1 tweeter wasn't as good at pulling out the softer notes, Strauss were great fun, but sounded a bit thick in upper bass/lower mids. Perlisten are special, and my only knock on them was the size of the stage and listening window was small, the kanta's had no bass below 100hz and i don't use subs in my 2 channel system. I've heard the persona 7f sound amazing and the salon 2 had the reputation, but with my h360 they merely sounded good and I wasn't ready to go on a component hunt.
Kef Blades sounded the best with the h360 and when I tried the h590 bass got even tighter, but I still had to turn them up to really appreciate how good they could be. a few months ago I added the Mc 611's and now the speakers open up ay even low volumes.

You have had some great and fairly expensive speakers and seems your conclusion is that it took an expensive amplifier to make the KEF blades sound good.

Is this purely subjective experience or do you have some more objective reasoning to support your conclusion? Do you now wonder whether the Hegel amp was keeping the Salon 2s from sounding better? Is your room treated and have you done any analysis of it?

 

[notsodeadlizard]

If you're in Denver you might call YG Acoustics to see if they have a demo locally (Arvada) or even at the factory--many manufacturers do. Maybe a bit utilitarian given the cabs are milled aluminum.
Latest product: https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2023/05/05/yg-acoustics-launches-reference-3-at-munich-announcements/

I'd also look at the thread the most beautiful speakers in the world: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/most-beautiful-speakers-in-the-world.17178/

It's fun speaker porn in any event--many of them are among the best sounding, but you'd have to travel the globe to hear them all.

Pure beauty!

 

[steve59]

You have had some great and fairly expensive speakers and seems your conclusion is that it took an expensive amplifier to make the KEF blades sound good.

Is this purely subjective experience or do you have some more objective reasoning to support your conclusion? Do you now wonder whether the Hegel amp was keeping the Salon 2s from sounding better? Is your room treated and have you done any analysis of it?

The Blades sounded great strait away, but last winter I had to deal with throat surgery and radiation and I rewarded myself with my first Mac products ever, that they made such an audible improvement at low volume was a bonus and worth mentioning. I could probably measure the higher bass output at 80 db but I don't know how to measure the dynamic contrast that the Mac gear produces. Once I'm turned up to 90 db or more I doubt I could tell the amp's apart, but the low level difference is worth mentioning.

I think any speakers worth consideration of SOTA should let the listener hear the difference between amps, it seems that low impedance speakers can bring out the worst in amps, just my experience. I'm a carpenter not an electrical engineer so take it for what it's worth.

I emailed Revel after my results with the h360 driving the Salon 2, thermal protection was shutting it down at volume #64 (I'd been able to turn the volume past 75 with other speakers.) and comparatively low spl, so I asked revel how much power they recommended for the speakers and the reply was short and sweet "500 watts". At that time it was the most I'd spent on a pair of speakers and I went on a bit of an internet tantrum so now I try to suggest that with enough power I could have had a better outcome.

 

[fpitas]

You are wasting your time, with this thread and so many other.
They are way too enamoured with their gear, to bother with details like the room, having a look at most install tell all you need to know. Speaker bla bla will sound so different/better/worst than the other speaker bla bla. Evidence? I heard it!
Beside Amir contributions and review, you need to look hard to find any science in this ocean of undemonstrated subjective comments.
All good in my book, everyone is entitled to enjoy themselves the way they see fit.

Why should I bother with room acoustics if I just listen to 1kHz through a dummy load?

 

[mj30250]

The Blades sounded great strait away, but last winter I had to deal with throat surgery and radiation and I rewarded myself with my first Mac products ever, that they made such an audible improvement at low volume was a bonus and worth mentioning. I could probably measure the higher bass output at 80 db but I don't know how to measure the dynamic contrast that the Mac gear produces. Once I'm turned up to 90 db or more I doubt I could tell the amp's apart, but the low level difference is worth mentioning.

I don't get deep into the amplification side of things (if my amp runs cool, isn't introducing noise, and nothing is clipping, I'm content), but if anything, shouldn't the opposite be true? Why in this case should a different amp provide a different experience at lower volumes, unless it's doing one of more of the following: messing with the frequency response (seems undesirable), adding distortion (some people like their tubes I suppose), or applying some sort of loudness compensation (which could be good / bad / is it defeatable?)?

 

[srrxr71]

I don't get deep into the amplification side of things (if my amp runs cool, isn't introducing noise, and nothing is clipping, I'm content), but if anything, shouldn't the opposite be true? Why in this case should a different amp provide a different experience at lower volumes, unless it's doing one of more of the following: messing with the frequency response (seems undesirable), adding distortion (some people like their tubes I suppose), or applying some sort of loudness compensation (which could be good / bad / is it defeatable?)?

Who knows? Maybe powering through passive crossovers takes some energy.

What I realized is that in our level of audio a lot of the energy is being used to be accurate and a lot of it is almost in a sense being thrown away.

I can get something that gets much louder with a lot less power but it won’t sound as accurate.

 

[steve59]

I don't get deep into the amplification side of things (if my amp runs cool, isn't introducing noise, and nothing is clipping, I'm content), but if anything, shouldn't the opposite be true? Why in this case should a different amp provide a different experience at lower volumes, unless it's doing one of more of the following: messing with the frequency response (seems undesirable), adding distortion (some people like their tubes I suppose), or applying some sort of loudness compensation (which could be good / bad / is it defeatable?)?

Exactly! Why would a 600 watt pull out more bass and detail than a 300 watt amp at 1 watt? I have absolutely no idea, in fact I would expect the opposite to be true with the more powerful amp showing itself at higher volumes so I was more than a little surprised when the opposite was true. Pleasantly surprised.

 

[srrxr71]

Exactly! Why would a 600 watt pull out more bass and detail than a 300 watt amp at 1 watt? I have absolutely no idea, in fact I would expect the opposite to be true with the more powerful amp showing itself at higher volumes so I was more than a little surprised when the opposite was true. Pleasantly surprised.

Could be some dynamics things where it has to overcome something in the crossover. I firmly believe in actives but even there I have 1800w of amplification on each side.

Thing barely gets loud outside the sweet spot. But it’s all designed to be perfect in the sweet spot.

 

[steve59]

1800 watts per side sounds like plenty of headroom.

 

[JRS]

The Blades sounded great strait away, but last winter I had to deal with throat surgery and radiation and I rewarded myself with my first Mac products ever, that they made such an audible improvement at low volume was a bonus and worth mentioning. I could probably measure the higher bass output at 80 db but I don't know how to measure the dynamic contrast that the Mac gear produces. Once I'm turned up to 90 db or more I doubt I could tell the amp's apart, but the low level difference is worth mentioning.

I think any speakers worth consideration of SOTA should let the listener hear the difference between amps, it seems that low impedance speakers can bring out the worst in amps, just my experience. I'm a carpenter not an electrical engineer so take it for what it's worth.

I emailed Revel after my results with the h360 driving the Salon 2, thermal protection was shutting it down at volume #64 (I'd been able to turn the volume past 75 with other speakers.) and comparatively low spl, so I asked revel how much power they recommended for the speakers and the reply was short and sweet "500 watts". At that time it was the most I'd spent on a pair of speakers and I went on a bit of an internet tantrum so now I try to suggest that with enough power I could have had a better outcome.

It may be that the Hegel is not that good an amp. No review here of the purely power amps, but the integrated amp reviewed the H95 was mediocre in most respects and lousy in others, especially at a 2000 USD asking price. Be curious to know the output impedance and a bit more about the blades. Maybe it's not up to tough loads--hence it's thermal shutdowns. Otherwise I like others are baffled by your results. Any competent pair of amps should be virtually indistinguishable at any volume up to clipping and/or exceeding the current capability. There were some real ball busting speakers back in the day that would make most amps cry for mercy. Not so common these days. Review linked.

Hegel H95 Review (Streaming Amplifier)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Hegel H95 integrated amplifier with DAC and streaming support. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $2000. The H95 looks pretty nice: I really like the large, high resolution and very responsive graphic display. What I don't like is...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[steve59]

I really the hegel h360 in comparison to similar rated and priced products between the $5-6k price range. In fact before the trice as powerful and 4 times the price mac separates the hegel is still my favorite integrated. I really am not trying to use my example to slam the h360 as much as share my experience.

 

[steve59]

You are wasting your time, with this thread and so many other.
They are way too enamoured with their gear, to bother with details like the room, having a look at most install tell all you need to know. Speaker bla bla will sound so different/better/worst than the other speaker bla bla. Evidence? I heard it!
Beside Amir contributions and review, you need to look hard to find any science in this ocean of undemonstrated subjective comments.
All good in my book, everyone is entitled to enjoy themselves the way they see fit.

i think adding room dimensions ans contributing components is important when ranking speakers and tbh I started a thread asking what measurement will show soundstage, imaging, and resolution and basically was told since those measurements don't exist they're not real and that's not good enough!

 

[FrankW]

OL
You are wasting your time, with this thread and so many other.
They are way too enamoured with their gear, to bother with details like the room, having a look at most install tell all you need to know. Speaker bla bla will sound so different/better/worst than the other speaker bla bla. Evidence? I heard it!
Beside Amir contributions and review, you need to look hard to find any science in this ocean of undemonstrated subjective comments.
All good in my book, everyone is entitled to enjoy themselves the way they see fit.

 

[Spkrdctr]

Why should I bother with room acoustics if I just listen to 1kHz through a dummy load?

Wow, old swing music must sound awesome! Nothing like a dummy load to give you crystal clear air in the highs. LOL

 

[fpitas]

Wow, old swing music must sound awesome! Nothing like a dummy load to give you crystal clear air in the highs. LOL

A dummy load is the ultimate fullrange

 

[Spkrdctr]

A dummy load is the ultimate fullrange

Wow, that is some amazing advice. I find that when shopping at say Best Buy and listening to speakers, if you get the "Dummy Load" often known as a salesman out of the way, you can listen much better!

 

[Ron Texas]

My vote is for some big white van speakers....