Best $2500. +/- (Pair) Rock & Roll Speaker.

I've owned a pair of Monitor 11s and, indeed, they do rock out. I liked guitars better through the Focal 928's that replaced the Paradigms but for the money (I paid $1000 shipped for brand new Monitor 11s), they are really hard to beat. Great suggestion. To add - the Monitor 11 was the speaker that truly sent me down this wonderful rabbit hole, so I have a fond place in my heart for them.

 

I've had a pair of Paradigm Eclipse for many years that I just love. They are a great all around speaker and rocks testicles

 

I'm surprised and intrigued by the number of Klipsch recommendations. I've always had an unfounded thought that horn tweeter/drivers were bright. Is that the case? I really like the idea of a sensitive speaker but find that they are in a real minority and the price often quickly becomes too dear for me. Also, nostalgic softy that I am, I really love the look of the Heritage series.
Though hardly rock 'n roll the vintage ad is awesome.

 

A pair of Zu Soul speakers for $2K then add a $500 sub. If you want to rock and roll this would be a great set up and would rock out with either tubes or Solid State amps. Best part, it would play plenty loud with not much power required do to the 99 dB SPL rating at 8 ohms.

 

If I had a bigger listening room I'd go for the Tannoy revolution xt6f.

 

Ah, the horn dilemma. The shape of a horn couples the small amount of air at the throat gradually to the large amount of air in the outside world, thus working rather like an electric transformer.

However, many horn shapes evolved from math, or cut-and-try, or to fit on a cabinet, or especially to look a certain way. This seldom lets the sound wave expand properly, to...let's call it smearing of the sound in time and space. There can also be resonances across the insides of the horn due to its dimensions, rather like a speaker cabinet.

So to pick on Klipsch, for example, their Reference series has horns with square mouths. But waves from a round source don't naturally expand in a square way, so there is a kind of fudged transition, and I would be a nice amount of money that if you measure the impedance curve it will show spikiness due to the reflections caused from this, with likely some delayed energies to boot. Klipschorn? Rectangular mouth midrange horn, rectangular tweeter horn. Circle does not expand into rectangle any better than to square, and having used that tweeter for the above mentioned Sigma Nu fraternity killers, I can testify the impedance was a spiky mess (as was the skinny rectangular Electro-Voice mid horn I used). The spiky impedance means passive crossovers won't really work properly, they will have super narrow fluctuations in frequency response.

By contrast, at one automotive company they wanted to make an under-dash horn. To fit, those all had skinny rectangular mouths. I insisted on prototyping a sliced slanted oval instead, since a circular wave from the compression driver could at least expand more smoothly. When measured...TA DA! The response was smoother! I was a genius! The world beat a path to my door!
...and found out I was not selling mousetraps, and cursed me, and went back home...

For hi-fi, Dr. Geddes (GedLee LLC ») insists you need an oblate spheroidal geometry, and some stuffing in the horn itself serving to reduce internal resonances. He's certainly done the math to support all that.

By the way, PA horns often have other types of shapes. Sometimes this is just fashion, other times it could be for cooling purposes, or for beaming the sound in a certain pattern and/or direction. That doesn't mean they won't have some of the reflection problems, just that they have other priorities set higher.

And even horns with reflection problems can still offer high sensitivity and low distortion, and a certain crispness of sound that's hard to match otherwise. Thus do you get such strong opinions about the horns: they're the one way to play REALLY loud, but since many are not well designed they can sound bright and "honky."

 

Thank you head_unit, for the full description, not just what I quoted. Although I don't often read pro reviews I did check a few such as 6 Moons and Tone Audio as well to get an idea.

 

i auditioned the goldenear triton 3 and i think 7 and b&w cm9 and 683s. i thought the goldenear would be wonderful for movies but not for my taste for rock. i found them too midrange forward for me. some material bordered on unlistenably harsh (mellencamp in particular). i used cds for the demo: steely dan aja mfsl, mellencamp lonesome jubilee mfsl, springsteen magic (to see how the speakers handled a compressed mess in contrast to the other cds), and a few others.

i admit to bias toward a warm sound which led me to purchase the b&w 683 s1 towers and i love them. for movies they need the sub reinforcement. but for 2ch stereo, bass is solid and punchy. the cm9 were more neutral than the 683 and performed very well with music and movies but i didnt feel they were worth the extra money. I've heard good things about the new 683 s2 as well. i have a cmc2 s1 center channel that pairs nicely with the 683s. you could get those 3 around 3k.

 

Which just goes to show you how personal speaker choice is: when auditioning GEs I pitted them against the 683 and found the 683 boring and uninvolving. I don't find the Golden Ears midrange forward, but rather relatively neutral, giving you back what's put into them. I'd never buy a speaker based on poorly mastered material; I'd just not listen to that type of material.

John K.

 

Maybe I could start a speaker company with aggressive heavy metal names:
"Dissident Agressor" featuring a 4x18" manifold cabinet
"Rapid Fire": a smaller, lightweight speaker with a Neodymium 10" + horn
"Wrathchild": highly sensitive 6" midwoofer/waveguided ribbon combo, 5 + an under-couch subwoofer
"Black Sabbath": coffin-shaped with a deep deep velvet black finish

 

What do you think about the Aggressive 1299 design?

 

@Thouston only get Klipsch if you have a low watt amp, like 20 wpc or less. Klipsch sound awful with high powered amps.

In the last few months I've home auditioned KEF, Klipsch, Polk and Golden Ear. Nothing can touch the GE Triton 3+. They're the best by a mile

 

agree. but sometimes one must suffer through awful mixes for great material; for example, springsteen's magic. interestingly though, iirc that album sounded the best on the GE. they seem to be very open speakers and there was more space in that compressed mess of an album. ultimately that album didn't factor into my decision. i bring that along to any listening session for s*its and giggles really. sort of extra credit after listening to some of my personal favorites. if magic sounds listenable, then that is a little +.

lonesome jubilee, which is very well recorded imho, was the cd that sounded harsh on the GE. the dobros in particular were overpowering and sounded brittle. did not have that on any other set up. that album has a lot of punch and is probably reproduced best on a warmer system. so maybe it wasn't fair. but the mids were really exaggerated and as you said, personal taste. . .

 

I think the klipsch heritage line warrants a listen, the high efficiency also opens up the possibility of tube amps. Plus they look really nice. I don't know if they're the absolute best in their price range but I'd be considering the heresy 3 or at least making moves to audition them. The tekton pendragons are also high efficiency and supposed to be really good but I haven't heard them.

 

The GEs are prone to a certain high frequency that causes a harsh resonance in the ribbon tweeter. No offense but they are best suited to HT duty.

 

that was my sense as well. more than likely great for movies but think there are better choices for 2 ch or surround music.

 

The highest level Golden Ear Tritons that your budget allows. I had a pair of Triton Sevens and they are amazing. If I hadn't found a crazy good deal on a pair of Spendor D7's, I'd still have 'em and be quite happy with them.

 

Lately I've been torn between playing my H3's through the surround processor and then into the Jolida 50 watt tube amp, or bypassing the processor and straight to the Jolida amp. This is during 2 channel vinyl play.

When using the processor the sub is active, without it, there is no sub.

I'm finding that I enjoy the sound without the processor better. The sub tends to add feedback when I crank things up and the processor cuts the low frequency to the H3's.

When bypassed, the H3's get full range and they deliver good ,tight and punchy low end. The sound is clear and detailed without added colorations. They are very revealing speakers and they play loud. They are a no-nonsense speaker system.

 

Lots of positive remarks around the Internet for the Tekton Design Pendragons. I just ordered a pair of the Tekton Design Double Impacts which are available if you can swing another $500.

 

You can get them much cheaper than that. My buddy got them cheap at the dealer he went through.

 

What about with a 39 wpc receiver like a Sansui 2000X?

 

What's better paradigm monitor 11 or focal 726? There's a nice sale $850 a pair on the focals.

 

I had the smaller Focal Chrous speakers and did not care for the sound. They were harsh and veiled at the same time which was weird. I bought them sound unheard and vowed never to do that again. I like the Paradigm sound much better, especially for rock.

 

Yeah mostly rock and prog and metal at my house. Thanks

 

If you are going to drop $850 and live with them for at least a few years, wouldn't you like to listen to them?