Speakers for Jazz

Hello, I'm looking for some info on the Norman Labs 82 you've mentioned. I just found a pair I'm considering buying and wanted to see if you'd recommend them. They're online and the seller has refoamed them. Any thoughts or opinions are helpful!

 

I didn't have mine refoamed. I bought woofer replacements from a guy in Louisiana who bought all of Norman Lab's inventory component pieces when they closed, but he didn't have the exact woofer and sold me a driver that looked exactly like the original with the same crossover specs. They sound just as good. No complaints.

I've never bought any speakers that have been refoamed. IMO it's not worth the risk since it requires a lot of precision on getting perfect perpendicularity with the surround and voice coil attachments. It's just simple physics when it comes to resonance of a driver when its installed in a enclosure. It may play perfectly with most music but play a tone near or at resonant frequency and it may introduce distortion and perform in unexpected ways with ringing or some other wonky cone noise.

Just my opinion.

 

I personally loathe the concept of speakers that are good for some genre specifically. Ditto for other kinds of gear. If a speaker sounds right for some genre and yet is lacking for others then something is just plain wrong. I listen mostly to jazz and classical. My speakers sound great for jazz and classical, but they also sound equally great for everything else.

I would not buy gear that sounds right for jazz (or classical, or whatever) but is lacking otherwise. I go for equipment that has a neutral presentation, but is otherwise wide range, dynamic and has great PRaT. I want my system to focus on the most accurate presentation of the recording as is. Let the mastering – for better or for worse – speak [sing] for itself.

 

A decent Bass/Treble adjust is all I need to play all genre's of music on my '72 Sansui/Norman Labs, even EDM shines on this system. But I pretty much have to take whatever is thrown at me on my studio monitor Sony headphones and MacMini. Fortunately most of that sounds good.

 

^^^This. I've never understood the question. The speakers are either high-fidelity or they're not. Now.. If one only listens to rock/metal, I can see giving up some treble/mid accuracy for full range heart crunching bass to stay within a budget. But otherwise, if you enjoy multiple genres, what he said^^^

 

I own a pair of Zu Audio Omen Dirty Weekend Mk II. For me, that's the jazz speaker, and that's what I play through them, pretty much exclusively. It's a full-range 10" woofer plus a super-tweeter, no crossover. They start at $999/pair including shipping. You may also find a used pair for less. Or, you can write to Zu - sometimes they have customer returns they sell for less, or they may have refurbished units. My only caveat - I think they benefit from tube amps, not sure if an SS amp would do just as well.

 

That's probably much easier for a $15K pair of speakers. I haven't had any long-term demos of speakers in that range, so I won't say such a speaker doesn't exist, but I have doubts that I've yet encountered one. Even among the $10K+ speakers I've demoed at dealers and shows, none convinced me they're capable of presenting all genres with equal poise. To me, such a speaker would be considered the perfect speaker, a unicorn.

IDK, maybe I'm just cursed with champagne taste and a beer budget, or maybe my hearing varies too much from day-to-day, but for now I'm stuck in the camp that believes there is no such thing as a perfect speaker, especially at the OP's budget.

 

I have never heard any speaker that excels with all music genres. That being said, I'm in the unicorn camp.

Nice thought though.

 

I'm fascinated by these speakers and would love to hear them one day. I bet they would be a great match for my '59 Fisher X-100.

I've heard that they can sound forward though, and that concerns me, as I prefer a warmer presentation.

 

They put the music in the room and are pretty revealing of your upstream components.

I like them with both tube and solid state, they are not fussy.

 

They are very forward dynamic speakers, but they would pair well with your X-100.

They are well suited for they types of music like Jazz or genera's that you might play with your Fisher.

They are not for playing hard, aggressive types of music. But, that is not the kind of music that I would be playing with a classic integrated.

For what they are, you would be hard pressed to find a modern, efficient speaker, that would match your vintage integrated for the money that you can buy the Dirty Weekend's for.

 

I haven't always had high end $16K speakers, but all the speakers I've had over the last 40 years or so have sounded neutral and played everything equally well. I still have a pair of old Dynaudio Audience 52SE that were about $1300 originally (IIRC, certainly not a lot more). They sound equally good for all genres of music. Dynaudio does that very well. Add a $600 REL sub and even better.

 

The Spendor D7s are amazing for jazz! So fast and dynamic and neutral forward, everything comes to life.

 

Well, if I ever find a Dynaudio speaker that can make the likes of Oasis' Morning Glory and Queen II sound tolerable, yet still extract oodles of detail from the best audiophile recordings, then maybe I'll jump on them. I haven't heard your Dynaudios but the ones I have were rather slow and boring with fast-paced rock music.

The problem I often encounter with speakers that handle complex passages and compressed recordings well, is they're usually (expensive) 3-ways, with crossovers that suck too much soul out of the midrange, sounding sterile and/or slow as a result. This applies even to the Magicos and Wilsons I've heard. They also tend to be of low efficiency with tough phase shifts, thus requiring higher SPLs and expensive amplification to open up. Klipsch 3-ways are an exception but their tweeters lack enough refinement for poor recordings, and start to steal the show at high SPLs.

 

I'm perfectly happy with my Dyns. They sound fantastic with whatever I throw at them. My search is over. Good luck with yours.

Maybe the problem you heard with Dyns is a problem with what was in the signal path before them them, and not the speaker itself. Just a thought.

 

Klipsch built outstanding cabinets and they use nice bass drivers.

But their midrange horns and drivers and their super tweeters can be harsh, as specially at higher SPL's, the legacy klipsch are best enjoyed by the soft light of tubes glowing in the background.

Klipsch are very sensitive speakers and people are often prone to overpowering them.

The Forte's series and other towers from the 80's and 90's do fine with SS amps and plenty of power.

The original Legacy series are very sensitive and have a wonderful clarity, but keep the volume down at lower levels, that is where they shine.

The large K-Horns can be cranked up, but in a LARGE room. They are well balanced speakers.

When you take speakers like the La Scala's, which are quite a bit smaller but use the same horns and driver's as the K-Horns, the high frequencies easily overwhelm the low frequencies.

The older legacy line's HF driders/horns tend to beam and not spread out in the room.

 

For Jazz ? Sonus Faber, none other.

 

You haven't heard mine then.

Four and a half decades playing around with this stuff including four pairs of 5 digit speakers and I can say that the Amati's do no wrong.

 

You can talk spec's all year but it won't tell you what a speaker or any piece of audio gear sounds like.

 

Note the OP's "insanely low" budget.

 

That is probably the reason that I don't talk spec's.

 

Sadly no.

 

Ditto on the D7's. I listen to 80% jazz and the vast majority of that is acoustic jazz from the 50s and 60s. I feel that easy to drive speakers (like the Spendors) respond very well to acoustic recordings. But like others have said, I would never have bought my D7's if I didn't feel they reproduced all music well.

 

Yep Yep!