First high end purchase

[Heman80s]

I have, like most people, been listening to music most of my life, but lately I have taken a bigger interest in the quality of the sound when I listen. This may or may not be because I can finally afford more than just some crummy pc-speakers, but at the very least I have decided to upgrade significantly. I am a bit of a rookie on the high end speaker market so would like some input to what I am should look at. I have a budget of up to 15000$ for a complete system, but if less can get the job done I would of course prefer that.

Where do I start? Who are the big high end speaker players? What do I need to know?

 

[rainsoothe]

Hi. Tell us what music you're into, how big your room is and if you need earthshattering volume or normal listening levels.

Oh, also, do you prefer standmounted speakers or floorstanders? And what source do you want? Streaming, CD playback, turntable etc.

 

[Al ears]

Welcome to the forum and no offense but if you have that much to spend and don't really know much about it then I would be getting to a few dealers rather than asking questions here.

Sure, you'll get some good advice and some bad and ultimately it will just lead to more confusion.

 

[gasolin]

Marantz PM8005/SA8005 + kef LS50 stands and mabye chord speaker cable,power mains and interconnect if you need a dac mabye arcam or chord.

Do you have a big room change the speakers to something bigger like B&W CM10s2 or Dali rubicon 8

If you want to play LOUD mabye a Hegel H200,H300 or H360, alternative to Hegel, emotiva

https://emotiva.com/products/pres-and-pros/xsp-1

https://emotiva.com/products/amplifiers/xpr-2

Some different if you want a system for your pc Audiolab M-Dac (looks like it has a volume knob)

Speaker Genelec 8250 awm or mabye Adam S3X-V don't forget good cable and stands (for desk i recommend isoacoustics stands)

use some of the money left for a good bottle of wine and some music you can listen to

 

[lindsayt]

Heman, there are only 4 things that you need to know:

1. How much were the speakers when they were new?

2. How much do they weigh?

3. How much do they typically sell for now?

4. How much will it cost you to buy the particular pair of speakers?

If they cost over a million yen when new and weigh over 70kgs then they are high end speakers. If you can buy them for less than $800 now, go ahead and buy them. Or if they will cost you $1500 less than the typical going rate, go ahead and buy them.

Which country do you live in, and how big is your room? And how important are looks and small size / WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) when compared to sound quality for the money spent?

It's possible that high end speakers may not be the right solution for you. It's possible that semi high end might be better. Or that lifestyle speakers might be better for you.

 

[emperor's new clothes]

Dynaudio Focus XD200 for medium room, 600 for a large one. Dynaudio connect & an iMac. Simple and cuts out the middlemen.

http://www.dynaudio.com/home-audio/focus-xd/

 

[Macspur]

Hi heman,

Welcome to the forum.

Which brands to you have access to? and what amp/source will you be using?

Mac

www.macsmusic.blogbubble.net

 

[DocG]

Welcome to the forum and no offense but if you have that much to spend and don't really know much about it then I would be getting to a few dealers rather than asking questions here.

Sure, you'll get some good advice and some bad and ultimately it will just lead to more confusion.

Al is a wise man. Do you have hifi shops within reach? What brands do they carry? Oh, and where do you live (since you state a budget in $)?

 

[Superaintit]

I agree with Al and DocG. Go out and listen.

I would suggest to listen to the beolab 10 for starters. I have searched long and hard, listened to a lot and finally settled on the beolab 10 predecessor, the 9. The 10 is active, has wireless Wisa compatibility and is supposed
to sound better than what I have. Me? I won't be changing anymore in 10 years time. It's been 3 years since purchase and never looked back.

Also check out Devialet.

 

[chebby]

I'd like to explore quite a few ideas if I had £15,000 and nothing else - more pressing - to spend it on.

As it's your cash that I am spending - albeit vicariously - then i'd like to investigate some Audio-Note AN-Ks along with some decent valve amplifiers (Prima Luna maybe) or a pure class A solid state amp from Accuphase. I'd also get something like this to get back into vinyl with ...

 

[Al ears]

I'd like to explore quite a few ideas if I had £15,000 and nothing else - more pressing - to spend it on.

As it's your cash that I am spending - albeit vicariously - then i'd like to investigate some Audio-Note AN-Ks along with some decent valve amplifiers (Prima Luna maybe) or a pure class A solid state amp from Accuphase. I'd also get something like this to get back into vinyl with ...

Good suggestion chebby but it's 15000 dollars. Having said that your suggestions are attainable.

Agreed it's always nice spending other people's money but ultimately they have to be able to actually audition it in my opinion, and we have no idea what that is.

 

[tonky]

No disrespect to anyone - It's a super hypothetical question - but it is a wind up surely.

tonky

 

[Andrewjvt]

If you visit a dealer.......
Ask him to demo hifi at various price brackets to see what you can get but dont tell him how much money you have to spend

 

[lindsayt]

Of the last 4 hi-fi dealers that I visited:

3 of them did not have any high end speakers.

1 of them had some high end speakers, but only at prices ranging from $25,000 to $60,000 - depending on active / passive / dsp options - making them way over the OP's budget.

 

[NSA_watch_my_toilet]

I believe you will receive lots and lots of knowledgeables and unknowledgables advices.

Let's be honest, would you marry to a wife because you was adviced by a knowledgable forum user ? Probably not. Sound is a personnal thing and we can only give you good advices. Please allow me although to warn you, we have, on every forum, lots and lots of disguised pro sellers that will try to make you be insterested on their brands. It's a common thing on hifi and to believe this is not the case in THIS forum would be foolish.

The best is to go on a discovery voyage. Make a tour during your holiday and go visiting various retailers and listen to diverse speakers. This will give you experience and will help you to establish your own tastes. Be aware that your room changes radically from a pro-audio store listening auditorium. So make sure you will compare some few of your "best beloved ones" in your home conditions before making some end decision.

To be sincere. There is an astonishing amount of good speaker available in your price range and there would be a lot of different kind of speakers and fuctions.

I work myself for some studios for master corrections and critical listening and use personnaly PMC fact speakers. I'm dedicated to neutral and high resolving sound what is a "taste of listening" of my own. I would have been happy with ATC SCM50 (active and passive) speakers that are, probably, the most high resolving and natural sound speakers I had the pleasure to listen to but had a quite difficult husband. An SCM50 with a little preamp (or mixing table) and you will be the master of the world.

Other good speakers I encountered :
ATC SCM100 (active and passive), PSI A-215M, PMC Fact8 and 12, Dali Epicon 8 and 6, Gauder accustic vescova and cassiano, Different Genelec mains, Haberth M40.2 and HL5, Wilson Benesch, Piega, Gamut speakers, B&W 801, Xavian XN360 and a few others. Please be aware that I can't be knowing the prices on your own market.

I hope you will find your luck.

 

[Electro]

Hello and welcome Heman80s,

We are going to need much more information from you to make any serious suggestions .

In the meantime just listen to every possible system you can (as already suggested by others) to find the direction you wish to take then start narrowing the choices down with our help if you wish .*smile*

 

[T1mb0]

Hi Heman, as others have mentioned we need more information regarding your music tastes, room size, stand mount or floorstanding preferences and existing setup etc?

It's difficult to give much good advice that would be useful to you without knowing this.

If I was in your nice position (and this depending on what you have now - basing on the assumption that you're coming from pc speakers that you mentioned) I would start at $7k budget, enough to put together a decent well sorted system and leaving the rest in the bank to upgrade to in the future. Half the fun is the upgrade journey and if you start at the top then it gets very hard (and increasingly bigger steps in cost!) to go up the ladder when you inevitably get the itch to change up.

Sorry for long post and if teaching you to suck eggs or things you already know but tell us a bit more about what you're looking for & answers to the q's above.

 

[Gazzip]

Hi Heman, as others have mentioned we need more information regarding your music tastes, room size, stand mount or floorstanding preferences and existing setup etc?

It's difficult to give much good advice that would be useful to you without knowing this.

If I was in your nice position (and this depending on what you have now - basing on the assumption that you're coming from pc speakers that you mentioned) I would start at $7k budget, enough to put together a decent well sorted system and leaving the rest in the bank to upgrade to in the future. Half the fun is the upgrade journey and if you start at the top then it gets very hard (and increasingly bigger steps in cost!) to go up the ladder when you inevitably get the itch to change up.

Sorry for long post and if teaching you to suck eggs or things you already know but tell us a bit more about what you're looking for & answers to the q's above.

This is very good advice.

 

[DocG]

Oh come on, guys! The OP has a $15.000 budget. So it's up to us to suggest combinations in the $20-25.000 region (or higher)! That's a basic rule on the hifi forum!!

BTW, where is the OP? Hasn't been seen here since his first post...

 

[Al ears]

Oh come on, guys! The OP has a $15.000 budget. So it's up to us to suggest combinations in the $20-25.000 region (or higher)! That's a basic rule on the hifi forum!!

BTW, where is the OP? Hasn't been seen here since his first post...

Switzerland, stashing his 15k!

 

[NSA_watch_my_toilet]

He probably just came there for taking advantage of the forum and then leaved without a thank you. So common today.

 

[Heman80s]

My apologies, I actually forgot about it afterwards as it is a new user, but I am overwhelmed with the amount of responses. I would also never make the decision based entirely on information from only 1 source, in this case this forum, but I like to use it to build a knowledge base to move forward from. It is a similar, but different issue if you go to a store, you speak to a salesman who has an agenda and I fear that the information I get is not 100% valid so several information channels are preferred.

With that said, I live in Denmark and have access to hi-fi stores so it is definitely possible to listen to systems in a store, which is definitely my next move.

 

[Frank Harvey]

As you don't know anything about hi-fi, I'd initially be tempted to not do any research, book half a day with a dealer, give him a budget (and any requirements you may have, either physically or visually), and ask him to have a couple of systems ready for you to listen to that HE would actually pay for himself if he was in your position.

 

[matthewpiano]

As you don't know anything about hi-fi, I'd initially be tempted to not do any research, book half a day with a dealer, give him a budget (and any requirements you may have, either physically or visually), and ask him to have a couple of systems ready for you to listen to that HE would actually pay for himself if he was in your position.

This really is the best way. Of all the equipment I've had over the last few years the biggest successes have been the things I've chosen following auditions and advice from a good dealer. Buying based on forum advice and reviews is a shortcut to wasting time and money.

 

[Macspur]

My apologies, I actually forgot about it afterwards as it is a new user, but I am overwhelmed with the amount of responses. I would also never make the decision based entirely on information from only 1 source, in this case this forum, but I like to use it to build a knowledge base to move forward from. It is a similar, but different issue if you go to a store, you speak to a salesman who has an agenda and I fear that the information I get is not 100% valid so several information channels are preferred.

With that said, I live in Denmark and have access to hi-fi stores so it is definitely possible to listen to systems in a store, which is definitely my next move.

Please do keep us posted with your progress.

Mac

www.macsmusic.blogbubble.net