HiFi (Speakers) Q

TTony

One of my ambitions for the NY is to get the band hifi back together.

(Actually, I'd like to get the band back together again as well, but that's a different subject.  Back to hifi ...)

For years, I've gone for the convenience and quiet-wife option - AV amp and Bose surround sound speakers.  Used more for watching DVDs than listening to music, and the set-up is probably better at the former than the latter.  CDs were (infrequently) played on the DVD player, most music listened to via headphones elsewhere.

So, I've dusted off my reasonable-spec CD player and am looking at amp & speaker options.

Encouraged by lots of similar threads on here, I've looked at eBay for older kit - though most of it now seems to be described as "vintage" and attracts "vintage" pricing in the same way that any old guitar now does.  I'll probably go for the reliability/guarantee of a new amp, but I'm intrigued by the speakers.

Are older speakers inherently better made and properly "run in" or do the advances in speaker technology over the years offset the inevitable cheaper materials now being used?  Should I be as wary of the potential reliability problems of older speakers as I am of the problems of older amps?  (Seen a few speaker re-conditioning sites, and discussions of replacing worn-out tweeters et al).

And ... do I get better bass out of floor-standing speakers, or can stand-mounted units do the job just as well?

And - finally - how do I persuade MrsTT that we really do need another set of speakers in the room ...

viz

Chillidoggy's your man for this. I hope you're feeling flush. @chillidoggy, over to you.

monquixote

Personally I'd go new. 

Technology advances and stuff gets better. Old speakers are likely to be worn and battered.

Hi-Fi is not like guitars better is better and things don't improve with age.

You also can't beat physics. All things being equal bigger speakers will always sound better.

Nomad

TTony said:

Are older speakers inherently better made and properly "run in" or do the advances in speaker technology over the years offset the inevitable cheaper materials now being used?  Should I be as wary of the potential reliability problems of older speakers as I am of the problems of older amps?  (Seen a few speaker re-conditioning sites, and discussions of replacing worn-out tweeters et al).

I suspect it's a bit of both. I used to think my KEF Kit3 speakers were excellent, but I learned that the B110 and T27 mid & treble drivers were a bit long in the tooth, design wise. I got a pair of KEF Q Compacts a few years ago, and find them better for detail and clarity. I till use the B139 bass drivers, though. (The system goes through an active crossover, so the Q Compacts are only seeing 150Hz and up - I tried the little KEFs on their own, and the bass was decent but not a patch on what the B139s can do.) The B139 bass divers are about 40 years old and have a lump of polystyrene rather than the usual cone - possibly the most piston-like of all bass drivers at any power within their handling limits.

  And ... do I get better bass out of floor-standing speakers, or can stand-mounted units do the job just as well?

Probably depends on the floor. Wooden floorboards will need isolation. If it's a hard surface, might want to be careful about proximity effects. I have big boxes on bricks, on a concrete floor, in a pretty well damped room, so not  a big deal for me. The little KEFs were tried on Atacama stands (hollow metal columns full of sand for ballast and damping).

I should mention that I virtually never sit down and listen to music. The hi-fi is mainly used for playing backing tracks for jamming along with and as one of several sound references for my compositional indulgences.

digitalscream

I was talking to my uncle about this earlier in the week. Of course, in his world, "fairly okay" speakers run at around £20k a set.

Mind you, it's pretty difficult to reconcile that with the fact that he hasn't had a job for 10 years.

Good luck...I'm sticking with my Denon amp and Tannoy monitors...

Phil_aka_Pip

monquixote said:

Personally I'd go new. 

Technology advances and stuff gets better. Old speakers are likely to be worn and battered.

Hi-Fi is not like guitars better is better and things don't improve with age.

You also can't beat physics. All things being equal bigger speakers will always sound better.

I'm in qualified agreement with mq, in particular I thoroughly agree with his last line, but only partially with his middle one.

I have two Quad 303s, one as a studio monitor amplifier, the other with the usual 33/FM3 preamp & tuner. The 303 will outperform anything else you can get for the price and much more than the price.

I also have a pair of B&W DM4s, although they are not hooked to either 303 (they are connected to a Trilogy VTi). Donkey's years old but still excellent speakers. I think I got them in 2006. Other excellent speakers include a pair of 2-way Leak Sandwich 600s hooked up to a Leak Stereo20. These are even older yet still give satisfaction.

Axe_meister

Check out some JPW P1s you can get them on the bay for about £30 and they sound fantastic

TTony

digitalscream said:

Mind you, it's pretty difficult to reconcile that with the fact that he hasn't had a job for 10 years.

If you can afford not to have a job for 10 years, you can probably also afford £20k for a set of speakers ...

I've got some old Celestion (DL6) and Tannoy (Mercury M1) speakers in the loft from days gone by.  I'll fetch those done sometime when MrsTT is out for the day.

Danny1969

Be a bit careful with older stuff, old amps may have problems with noisy pots, leaking caps, bad joints etc. I'm a big fan of over spec'ed amps in terms of power rating. The studio power amp is 300 watts a side RMS for example. Old Yamaha and Bryston amps are very nice

Older speakers can be superb but some will be worn out. A speaker has moving parts which wear out. Crossover components can drift in value and move the x-over point. Bigger boxes are better in terms of bass response but in a home spending a million pounds on speakers won't make up for the fact the room nodes will interfere with the bass ...  unless you install traps in all 8 corners at the very least  ..... and in a home that might not be practical. 

digitalscream

TTony said:

If you can afford not to have a job for 10 years, you can probably also afford £20k for a set of speakers ...

Not in this case. His hi-fi is actually worth (significantly) more than his house, and his income is managed by the Job Centre...

monquixote

Phil_aka_Pip said:

monquixote said:

Hi-Fi is not like guitars better is better and things don't improve with age.

I'm in qualified agreement with mq, in particular I thoroughly agree with his last line, but only partially with his middle one.

I should probably qualify that statement. There is an element of personal taste to it of course, but unlike guitar amplifiers you don't want loads of weird distortion and non linear behaviour so wonky old vintage stuff doesn't hold the same appeal.

TTony

monquixote said:

Phil_aka_Pip said:

monquixote said:

Hi-Fi is not like guitars better is better and things don't improve with age.

I'm in qualified agreement with mq, in particular I thoroughly agree with his last line, but only partially with his middle one.

I should probably qualify that statement. There is an element of personal taste to it of course, but unlike guitar amplifiers you don't want loads of weird distortion and non linear behaviour so wonky old vintage stuff doesn't hold the same appeal.

Are you calling @Phil_aka_Pip "wonky" ???

I've been reading through various review sites, and it all seems to be as opinionated as any other hobby.  Probably because we all have different tastes, expectations, and views on what's "good".

But everyone says that Bose is crap.  (I actually like it.  The first time that I heard a Bose system, it was way better than any existing "hifi" setup that I had - and I heard more of the music that I was listening to.  And main system that I've used for the last 10+ years was free, which makes it excellent VFM!).

monquixote

I briefly did some work with a very well professor of acoustics who has designed products for several major hi-fi brands. He was absolutely scathing about Bose. 

The Bose systems I've seen are based around tiny tweeters and a sub. The result sounds quite "exciting" as it's all booming bass and fizzy treble, but it's totally lacking in midrange detail (which is where all the good stuff happens).

I've come from a background of listening to expensive studio monitors so I don't really like that sound.

Have a listen to a really decent set of floorstanders and see what you think.

xHymnal

I've had the privilege of seeing and hearing a goldmund reference through BM 100 speakers... Probably close to a mil worth of kit but it did sound good... The guy even had the room specially built for it all! But yes, a guy I know who restores hifi would shrug off the suggestion that 20k is expensive for speakers, I think his cables alone wouldn't be worth far off that. It's an insane world! I know very little about it but inclination would recommend that you'd get more for your money buying modern gear. A few things spring to mind though, make sure you can put the speakers somewhere good, using pins to contact the floor and don't skimp on decent cables. A valve amp would be worth investing in, and don't be afraid of checking out Japanese brands

hubobulous

I have some Celestions on stands and Monitor Audio floor standers. Very comparable and I probably prefer the Celestions, although they're connected to my Audiolab pre which i prefer.

Roland

monquixote said:

The Bose systems I've seen are based around tiny tweeters and a sub. The result sounds quite "exciting" as it's all booming bass and fizzy treble, but it's totally lacking in midrange detail (which is where all the good stuff happens).

My feelings exactly. I don't mind a sub for handling the real sub-bass, but if the main speakers are too small then the "sub" end up handling the guitar and most of the vocals.

monquixote

On the subject of speaker cabling at the BBC you will find speakers costing many thousands hooked up with speaker cable that costs about £3 a metre. I wouldn't spend any more than that. 

The properties of speaker cable over very short runs is virtually irrelevant. 

Sambostar

I went on a speaker hunt some 6 months ago as my Mission 732's on stands were a bit boomy and lacked clarity.  Now I still had the Kef catalogues from back in the day,1996 I think.  I was after some Q55.2's (The 2 version has the veneer front as well and the 55's two drivers) but open to loads of others and had loads shortlisted.  Generally what I found was that even speakers this old, getting on twenty years were still commanding decent money and were going for £250+.  So in the end I settled on some Q35.2's for fifty quid.  Now on getting them home I was massively impressed by their transparency and openness, I think that is a older British Kef feature, but 6 months down the line I remember why I chose the 732's in the first place, as they were more fun to listen to in some respects.  The Kef's are great, but they are a bit like monitors in the detail respect and they leave a four piece band lacking a bit.

I think the only disadvantage you will have when buying used is that tweeters and rubber and some cones (Mission) can wear and age and break down, depending on abuse and sunlight you have no stage to try them out against each other.  When you go on YouTube, you get a zillion renditions of crap MP3 dance tracks played by internet warrior morons through them and since it's through your computer anyway, it is no real help or reference.  I forget the favourite particular theme of the month, it's  dragon warrior computer synth thing or something.  About as useful as a warm turd.

I also have plenty of older Wharfdales, they are infinitely shit compared to modern speakers.

It's nuts to play Van Halen through a 50k system.  It's like spending 40k on an engine polish for a Suzuki Alto.

Also I wanted floorstanders that also looked half decent.

It's incredible how personal it is to what sounds good or not is.

TTony

monquixote said:

I've come from a background of listening to expensive studio monitors

I think that's the important statement.

When I heard my first Bose system, my comparator was a fairly basic "hifi" set-up.  Bose sounded good.  

Since then, I acquired a bigger Bose system at no cost, and so didn't have the prompt of having to assess how the Bose system compared to something else.  It wasn't a case of "do I buy X or Bose".  And given that my previous assessment of it was that it was good, I was - as far as I knew - a happy TT.  MrsTT was a happy MrsTT too, because Bose does the surround sound TV thing pretty well, and the speakers are small and unobtrusive.

But ... I do wonder whether I've missing out on some auditory quality, hence the thought that maybe I should try something that's more hifi.  

I'll pop your floorstanders in the boot when I collect the THR10

xHymnal

monquixote said:

On the subject of speaker cabling at the BBC you will find speakers costing many thousands hooked up with speaker cable that costs about £3 a metre. I wouldn't spend any more than that. 

The properties of speaker cable over very short runs is virtually irrelevant. 

I'd be inclined to agree with you on that one, to a certain extent. Theres a noticeable difference in guitar cables, IMO. You don't have to spend loads to get decent cable though. Van Damme and Sommer speaker cabling is only about a quid a meter. My personal hifi is a very unassuming affair but I guess to the guys that really go for it and are happy enough to spend hundreds of thousands on it they might as well go the whole hog and buy the cables too. No doubt said cable manufacturer has convincing looking sales spiel. 

ToneControl

Almost all high street hifi speakers are sold as a decor-oriented compromise on size, either by having very small volume cabs with many ports, or a "small speakers + separate sub" approach
It's very hard to find domestic speakers with drivers larger than 4 or 5 inches, and realistically, you can't get bass from small drivers unless they have a huge throw, so you are losing the bass or sending it from behind some furniture, or at best from a single off-axis location near a wall

The Bose speakers sound good compared to the space they occupy, but they did not invent the technologies involved, and so you can save lots going for the competitors, Richer Sounds' Cambridge brand does a rival product. Bose and its rivals are not hifi though, since you are always going to have bits of the spectrum missing or with phase errors where different frequencies from a single instrument or voice are coming from different places, and you will always be losing some of the midrange from the little drivers

The most stunning example of what Bose cannot do was the pair of Tannoy Ardens I had. Dual concentric point source 15 inch drivers
I bought the pair (main studio monitors from Mike Harding's studio ) in their original cabs, for £400 or so
I think they were £7k new in the 70s
Anyway, as well as being ridiculously efficient, and based on Alnico magnets, they were also unusual in that the tweeter horn was in the centre of the woofer, aligned to be completely in phase with the woofer, so any sound would emerge from a single point, with all frequencies in phase. They were amazing, but huge. I had to sell them when we lived in our 2nd house, and the replacement Dynaudio pair of passive monitors were a a little more accurate, but nothing like as enjoyable
Don't let anyone tell you that having a separate sub is not a compromise. Ideally you need all the sound for each channel coming from the same place, so Bose-type systems are always a compromise, although of course they are easier to fit into kitchens and decor-driven living rooms

As mentioned, wall and corner effects will mess up sound, but most hifi buffs ignore this, and there's little chance of correcting this in a main living room

At present my approach would be:

For a compromise room: use the small speaker + sub approach, e.g. http://www.richersounds.com/product/standmount-speakers/cambridge-audio/minx-min11/camb-minx-min11-blk

For "hifi", try to get large volume speakers with bigger drivers. Years ago I helped a friend select B&W 603s, which as expected did not need separate sub, since they kick out enough bass for AV and hifi anyway. I bought a used pair myself eventually, definitely far better than bose and may even pass the decor test

for hifi/mixing, look at the studio monitors available. These are far more tweakable for the way sub and main drivers integrate, with rolloffs, etc. Often bigger bass drivers are available, and having separate dedicated amps for each driver is an advantage. Focal are good.

Also you can go to the "Wilmslow audio" route, and build large studio monitors with ATC drivers, etc
Ideally we'd be talking drivers at least 12 inch diameter, and avoiding the need to rely on bass ports
8 inch drivers are OK
http://www.wilmslow-audio.co.uk/recording-studio-monitors-117-c.asp

As mentioned, speakers over 10 years old could have faults - better to get newer

Don't make the mistake of getting a 20w amp, since properly mastered stuff on CD has a far larger need for headroom than vinyl, so ideally 150w a channel if you like to play music loud
I tried amps up to 200w a channel, and there is definitely a clearer rendition of drums and other transients using more powerful amps compared to 50w per channel ones. I used to use a NAD 180w a channel amp before I got powered monitors