What's the best passive (and preferably floorstanding) speaker one can find for $2,500 or less?

[direstraitsfan98]

No upper limit, that’ll be fun:

* KEF Blade (or Muon if you are a billionaire).

* All Vivid Audio Giya models in your budget; despite its boutique looks, it’s actually very good.

* All Magico models in your budget.

* All YG Acoustic models in your budget (can’t attest to their lower end, but their high end is excellent).

* Custon speaker by Salk Sound. Design the best speaker possible with drivers available to the public.

* The mentioned Salon2 is excellent, but underbudget.

Probably should have said $60k upper limit but I have no qualms spending less.

 

[6speed]

I am aware of Troels' site, and he is prolific. If you wanted to build from scratch and not design anything, he has something for almost everyone. As many times as I have mined his site for some specific bit of information, I had never noticed the fact that he is selling anything.

 

[MZKM]

Probably should have said $60k upper limit

But yeah, any models from those brands in that price range will be most likely the best possible out of the brands I know of (well, as stated I don’t know about YG’s lower tier), and I won’t say the best possible as you never know, maybe some dude in Transylvania makes an insane speaker.

A custom speaker by Salk would be something I would be interested in, especially as I would love a fully active crossover system using a MiniDSP SHD and with dual (or quad) subs, though you need to be tech-savvy for that (and I would still have them model a crossover of course to make sure it can work well, hopefully they actually do that and not trial/error), but it’s a lot more involved.

 

[Roen]

How much do Radialstrahlers run?

How accurate are they?

 

[Blumlein 88]

* The mentioned Salon2 is excellent, but underbudget.

Well I thought near $22k was in the ballpark. I guess underbudget is a deal killer.

I must admit Diy at this level didn't occur to me. The design acumen of The $25k speaker designer makes me wonder how many diyers could come close. But there you are.

 

[MZKM]

How much do Radialstrahlers run?

How accurate are they?

These are $70K
They are decently designed, but how accurate they will be in your room due to being omnidirectional is something no one can say.

 

[MZKM]

In my reasonably informed opinion, blowing $60,000 on loudspeakers is usually a fool's errand. With a tiny number of exceptions, you'll have to buy passive loudspeakers. No one makes passive loudspeakers that are as good as the best digital active loudspeakers: the Beolab 90s, the Kii Threes, and the D&D 8Cs.

The Beolab 90s may now be available for an amount in the $60K neighborhood or less. Those would be your best bet if you're looking to spend a lot of money and have speakers that you can show off to your civilian friends. From an audio perspective (as opposed to a commodity fetishism perspective), whether the Beolab 90s make more sense, or would be better in any respect, than the Kiis or the 8Cs will be determined the size and layout of the listening room.

The Dutch & Dutch 8C’s are indeed astongingly good, especially the cardioid aspect which helps tackle room placement and reflections. I do wish the measurements they provide were unsmoothed, and I would really like SoundStage/NRC to measure them, including distortion characteristics. We also don’t know how good the it’s DAC is or it’s frequency response at different SPLs for instance.

However, all-in-one systems do take some of the “fun” out of having your DAC/pre/amp/etc. on display, and the asthetics of an expensive Hi-Fi tower does factor into our subjective evaluations of the sound and also if we simply like the look in and of itself for the room it’ll be in.

 

[HammerSandwich]

However, all-in-one systems do take some of the “fun” out of having your DAC/pre/amp/etc. on display, and the asthetics of an expensive Hi-Fi tower does factor into our subjective evaluations of the sound and also if we simply like the look in and of itself for the room it’ll be in.

Why not a pair of outstanding actives plus a stack of pretty, vintage gear for pennies on the dollar?

 

[MZKM]

If you care about that kind of nonsense, the gynecologist over at WBF may be able to help you.

Showing off to friends/family is an aspect for rich people, which do you think would impress people more, this system:

or this system?:

The former are some of the best speakers out there, yet someone not into Hi-Fi may think they didn’t even cost you $1k and or even that you got them from a garage sale.

 

[Sal1950]

What about speakers $25k+? Any suggestions?

JBL M2 with the Mark Levinson electronics upgrade.
Then when I'm really rolling, another 3 for a killer 5 channel surrond rig.

 

[Sal1950]

Showing off to friends/family is an aspect for rich people, which do you think would impress people more, this system:

Is that little sound bar in the middle supposed to support the two towers as a center channel?
Good luck with that.

 

[RayDunzl]

which do you think would impress people more

 

[HammerSandwich]

Ray, "people" doesn't mean you had to be born since 2010.

 

[Dialectic]

My relative bought the lightly used pair of Revel F206s for US$2K. Thanks to all, and especially to @Blumlein 88, for the advice.

 

[Darwin]

Experience with the Bronze, Klipsch and Ascend, and the price tags at time of purchase.

How would you compare the Chane vs. Monitor Audio?

I've never had anything from Monitor Audio. I'm now looking more closely at the Revel Concerta 2 F35 or F36.

 

[jhaider]

+1 on Magico

...although my semi-DIY suggestion is

1. Buy old Watt Puppies for the cabinet materials tech
2. Replace the drivers with Scanspeak woofers, Satori mids and Bliesma tweeters
3. Junk the crossovers and go fully active

The problem with that is is that different drivers won't fit right in the cabinet! The Satori has a smaller flange than the Seas or ScanSpeak mid woofer (depending on vintage) used in the WATT. I don't know if there's a new woofer with the same frame size as the Dynaudio woofers in the puppy.

A couple problems there.

I've never had anything from Monitor Audio. I'm now looking more closely at the Revel Concerta 2 F35 or F36.

The Revels are very nice. The 3-way Monitor Audio towers Kal Rubinson reviewed in Stereophile both measured very well on and off axis. I would prefer them to a Raal tweeter speaker, because I don't like the disappearing-when-you-stand-up treble effect from the Raal ribbon.

I reviewed and measured the last generation Monitor Audio Silver-series stand mount. It had excellent on axis measurements but cried out for a waveguide on the tweeter to be truly transparent sounding.

The fit and finish was exceptionally nice. That has long been the case with Monitor Audio.

https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews...-audio-silver-1-bookshelf-loudspeaker-review/

 

[Roen]

If you ask me what the ribbon's biggest weakness, even more than the frequency distortion, it's the poor vertical dispersion.

 

[MZKM]

If you ask me what the ribbon's biggest weakness, even more than the frequency distortion, it's the poor vertical dispersion.

I mean, how often are you wanting good sound when walking around the room? I’ll talk degraded performance for minor usage to gain exceptional performance for main usage.

 

[Roen]

I mean, how often are you wanting good sound when walking around the room? I’ll talk degraded performance for minor usage to gain exceptional performance for main usage.

I'm just saying, if I had to pick out something, that would be it.

 

[MZKM]

I'm just saying, if I had to pick out something, that would be it.

It’s still decent though, a speaker which has terrible vertical off-axis is Tekton, due to its tweeter array; here’s a speaker with a RAAL tweeter:

Here’s a Tekton: