Floor standers

[admin_exported]

Hi, i hope to be buying some floorstanding speakers soon and would appreciate some advice. Amp is I30primare & cd player is primare cd31. Speakers would need to be about 1 foot from rear wall and about 6 ft apart. Listning position is about 8 ft from speakers. Are floor firing ports less critical when it comes to room positioning. I've been reading reviews on proac speakers & spendor. My musical tastes are quite varied, but mainly listen to rock, would like a pair of speakers that could handle anything you throw at them.Budget is about the £2000 mark. Cheers everyone.

 

[Clare Newsome]

I'd certainly add the Wilson Benesch Square Two floorstanders (£2200) to your audition list.

 

[Thaiman]

[quote user="underslunky"]but mainly listen to rock, would like a pair of speakers that could handle anything you throw at them.Budget is about the £2000 mark[/quote]

Read like Roksan FR5, Vandersteen Audio 2ceSIG or Neat Acoustic.

All are under £2k. I wouldn't buy big ProAc if you listen to a lot of rock.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm in the process of selling wilson benesch square one's and i'm not over keen on their sound so would really like to steer clear of wilson benesch, any other idears would be most welcome.

 

[Clare Newsome]

Fair enough. Give Dali Mentor 5 a whirl - will suit the positioning you're after. Spendor S8e floorstanders are also worth a listen, though I fear they may be a tad polite for the sound you're after.

 

[Anonymous]

I notice that the dali's have a rear firing port this might cause problems with too much bass. I did own monitor audio gs10s they had rear firing port and did give a boomy bass, will floor firing ports give me the same problem? I'm really at a loss as what to buy. I was hoping to get the proacs 130 or 140s but a previous post (sorry forgot your name) advised against this could i ask why? I don't really want to puchase stand mounts anymore.Cheers.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree about bass problems in some standmounts - esp when i had Quad 11Ls, they were terrible in that respect. My B&W 805s however don't have any problems with bass, it is exceptional quality bass altho it rolls off towards the bottom end.

Proacs go extremely well with Primare, I had the Primare A30.1 + Proac D15 combo. I think some people believe that it's not a very dynamic speaker, but I didn't have a problem with dynamics at all: Proacs certainly have that room-filling quality, and they're lively too. Also it is said that Proacs are more classical & acoustic speakers, but again I enjoyed dance music and rock on them. I prefered them to the B&W 700 range, Neat, MA, PMC, etc.

Primare also go well with Monitor Audios (my second system is Primare A30.2 + MA GR10s). If you liked the MA sound, there's a MA GS60 on sale incl warranty... here on ebay. See review downloads here

PMC and ATC are worth hearing. PMC have awesome bass, ATC 40 does too. ATC sound is amazing actually, very revealing too, which is a double-edged sword.

 

[Anonymous]

How close are your speakers to the rear wall. Mine are 1ft this gave me bass problems with MA GS10s. Apart from that problem they were lovely speakers. I could follow lyrics to songs with ease they were very clear, & handled all types of music. I just wonder if floorfiring ports will give me good bass but not excessive. Thanks for the reply Pete.

 

[drummerman]

The 'boomy bass' or your speakers interacting with your room mode can be further aggrevated by using designs with poorly damped bass units in tandem with an amplifier with a low damping factor. That however is not a problem with your primare's. I think its fair to say 'soft bass' is a common trait to MA's standmounts and some of their floorstanding designs.

Unfortunately, having floor ported speakers, although in theory less critical to place in-room, is no guarantee that the port tuned frequency will not interfere with your room. You can re-tune ports by blocking/part-blocking them but that more often than not causes other compromises as I'm sure you found out with your previous speakers.

You really need to find a dealer with good choice and try speakers in the context of your system at home. I actually like the larger proacs and suggest you find out for yourself whether you do too rather than taking a forum membes word for it ... unless its mine of course.

 

[Anonymous]

My GR10s are 1 ft away from the window (the whole wall is a floor to ceiling window), and having glass instead of wall probably does suck out the bass, it seems fine though with the Primare, the MF X80 i had before was too soft in the bass tho, but when i had those in my old living room i had to have the MFs 2-3 ft out. I use Partington Ultima stands which are excellent at bass.

BTW, Proac was fussy with positioning, I had to have them 1m away from the rear wall. There's a D25 on sale on ebay too, altho that's a bit over your budget.

If you do go auditioning, i recommend trying out the B&W 805s even tho they are standmounts. I'm sadly going to sell mine now that i'm getting a Sonus Faber Cremona