You might like the Wolf von Langa SON. State of the art field coil drivers, dipole presentation, 94dB 1watt/1meter sensitivity. Heads up that I import WVL in the states.
@avanti1960 have you ever listened to these? 88dB No coloration Neutral Bass (35 hz claimed) Refined, transparent and natural ATC SCM 100 SL
Excellent loudspeakers: very tuneful, detailed, dynamic and fast too (obviously as long as the source has those qualities).
My journey was somewhat different beginning in audio in my teens at 16 I was buying audio over my friends who were buying cars. I auditioned all the usual suspects and had subscriptions to the magazines. Then I auditioned an all Audio Note set-up at Soundhounds in Victoria - meh. Then heard the AN K vs the Reference Sa MM De Capo, a Paradigm and the B&W N805 - the K was the store's ringer as I asked them to put in a speaker they liked into the shoot-out - it won. I eventually bought them - then the J. Then I became a reviewer to see what would replace the J. It turned out to be the E. Not that I haven't liked a lot of other speakers - many mentioned in this thread but I still maintain the K, J and E are the most balanced speakers I've heard for normal-sized rooms efficient enough for 7-watt amps, at or near the top for bass their size, with near single driver cohesiveness. But balanced also tends to mean not excelling in individual areas. The downside of owning a speaker for line for 19 years is that they become a kind of comfortable slipper and any new speaker seems wrong. When I hear Spendor - I hear a plastic woofer - they seem lean. Harbeth 40.1 sounds slow and lumbering. Panels have no depth and no ability to pressurize instruments -- holographic and clear but no real body - and the Ribbons sound spitty. AMT drivers sound affected and a little hard. The ViVID Guya with D'Agostino sounds analytical and I always hear every driver operating independently (like ATC). It's not necessarily that any of these would not grow on me over time - but since I can't be sure of that I'm not really willing to lose a lot of money on the attempt. And the speakers where I would take the chance are ungodly expensive and far too large (Acapella Audio Arts) to fit in my apartment in Hong Kong or my house in Canada.
I have never heard the NS5000, but, i got to audit the NS-F901 a few years ago. A younger fella i came to know kept raving on and on about it and invited me to audit it in his house. For the relatively modest price, it was an absolute shocker and seemed to play ball with some very high dollar speakers out there. Apparently, Yamaha' s engineers spent years on it and wanted to beat out some of the TADs out there. I am curious to know what they did with the 5000. When it comes to looks, the NS-F901 is a winner for me over the NS5000 though. I am not a fan of that old school NS5000 look.
I have heard the NS F901 .A decent speaker but nowhere near the NS5000.As some of the reviews mention the midrange is really special.A really good dome midrange like the ATC takes some beating but I think the Yamaha Zylon one in the NS5000 is even better.
I went shopping for you - 25 years ago. When you could get speaker drivers, enclosure, amp all made in USA (the transformer made in Canada...), under $5000. The passive/active Boston VR970 (and slightly revised and later offshored VR975) with Lynnfield tweeter is just plain flat and clean - and efficient at 91dB. Dial your own bass emphasis. The smaller VR960 - "simply the flattest response we've ever measured" - stereo review REW done this year by AVSforum member (dark green is without EQ or adding sub): of 70 lbs, over 50 of that must be MDF.
Over the years Boston Acoustics has made some beautiful speakers. And they have done miracles by producing them at prices that were affordable by the everyday audiophile. I was in shock when the brand was bought and closed down. I bought several of their flagship speakers before they closed. These were towers from the M-Series line.
Might look at some of the NSMT models. Erol has changed the drivers in the ones I have, so I can't comment. The Model 100 is getting most of the attention at the moment. The PSM and Model 100 are both about 93 dB sensitivity. He does great things with cabinets.
Which was too late. The Boston tooling had been turned into Malaysian Lychee tin cans by then. The Bain Capital, D+M Holdings acquisition era of service manuals in Chinese. "luxurious leather-feel trim". Sound United seems to have left the D+M era 2012 site on autopilot: m-series.eu. Here's a response plot from that site - that's supposed to be showing the "good" version in red (only shown down to 100Hz): Maybe Elac is a late comer, re-orienting towards reasonable but good speakers for a while. There's a huge price gap once you go beyond their Chinese-made ones. Virgin Islands shell corp unsuccessfully trying to hide their true ownership. Or Tekton, there's a small range there between practical and stupefying.
No problem. Tosca 2020? If so, my friend was very impressed by them too. I haven't listened to them until now. The Tosca S2 wasn't to our taste at all but I'm relative certain that he has listened to the Tosca 2020. Tosca 2020 | Odeon Audio - Lautsprecher handgefertigt in Deutschland
Yes, 2020. I’m surprised that my friend who has spent a good part of his life at live performances would have been blown away by these.
Not that this is a speaker suggestion you are likely to bother with, but simply in terms of relating my experience, having owned the Harbeth SuperHL5+ (which I loved): The sound you are describing seems to fit the sound I have currently, like a glove. That is: Thiel 2.7 speakers with Conrad Johnson tube amplification (Premier 12 mono blocks). I previously had (among many other speakers) the larger Thiel CS 3.7 speakers - Jim Thiel's last flagship. They are still overall probably the best overall speakers I've ever had in my room. The problem is they were just a bit too big in aesthetic and ergonomic terms for my medium sized room. In an attempt to slightly downsize I listened to a gazillion different speakers, everything from Harbeth to Spendor D series, to Magico, to Focal, to Raidho, to Joseph Audio, Devore, Audio Note and many more. Every time I came home from auditioning some other speaker I'd fire up the Thiels and think "Damn, I just can't beat the overall combination of characteristics these things have." Thiel had at one point a reputation for being "ruthlessly revealing " or "lean" or "bright". (I've had other Thiel speakers). In the last coax design Thiel absolutely nailed it - rich, full, smooth, completely coherent and NOT bright. Just bang on. But the best came with combining them with my CJ tube amps. The Thiels just sang: they had NO noticeable cabinet coloration - the most overall "out of the box" from top to bottom sound I've heard, just rich, smooth, and LUSH...WHILE having those well known Thiel characteristics of incredible detail, transient speed right down the the bottom of the bass, massive soundstaging, and incredibly dense precise imaging and, very important to me, DYNAMIC in that "fast" life-like sense. It was just the whole ballgame. As a Harbeth fan I thought maybe I could downsize from the Thiels and so I bought the SuperHL5+. I loved the Harbeths, incredible for voices, generally neutral, not fatiguing, yet open and airy sounding, organic, great instrumental timbre, rich, well balanced. The thing is, the combo of the Thiel 3.7s and the CJ amps gave me pretty much everything the Harbeths did - all that richness and organic timbre - but "better" and "even more real." An example I've used before, recordings of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. The Harbeths nailed the timbre of those guitars, they were clear, relaxed, timbrally convincing. However, compared to the same tracks on the Thiels, the Harbeths sounded a little bit thick and muddied, a sense of something being added, which I presumed was the resonating cabinet. This wasn't something that stuck out listening to the Harbeths on their own, but was more evident in comparison. The quartet's guitars had all that richness, body and organically "correct" sounding timbre on the Thiels - sounding very much like the Harbeths - but it was cleaned up, no slight "thickening" around the guitars, each was rendered more cleanly, clearly and dynamically real. Basically it just sounded more real. I coudn't give that up, so I sold the Harbeths. Later I got hold of my current speakers, the Thiel 2.7s, which were the slightly smaller version of the flagships, released after Jim's death. I was happy to hear that the 2.7s sounded just like the larger model in character, though with even a slightly more dense, punchy and dynamic sound. I've been tube rolling and swapping from my original 6550 power tubes to KT120s (and changing some input tubes) the sound is utterly massive, wall to wall, walk in to the auditorium-vibe. Big, lush, but dynamic as heck. Anyway...that's my story and I'm sticking to it Oh...forgot to mention: The sensitivity of the Thiel 3.7s both rated and measured by stereophile, is slightly above 90dB! Don't get stuck on those specs IMO. My 2.7s are actually spec'd at a lower 87dB sensitivity, with similar impedance, but in direct comparisons they actually sounded even more dynamically "alive." You may find that if you combine a speaker that has the basic "right stuff" for you, adding a particular amplifier may produce the perfect combo. (I also own the Joseph Audio Perspectives....but that would take another description..)
I found the Sonus Faber I auditioned botl admittedly, to be gorgeous to look at, but dull sounding with more than a slight mid bass bump.
Might be a silly question. But do you have the XD version? if not have you tried the XD version of your speakers? maybe that will do it for you
As there are many extremely capable speakers out there. The big thing is: It’s not what I would require from the speaker but what the speaker would require from me…………$$$$$$$.
