Hifi component/speaker partnering

[pravstar]

There seems to be a lot of components which work best when matching, I just wanted to ask if you agree in general with this, and if possible, please feel free to add others to the list or alter/modify my comments

Arcam and sugden with proac

Musical fidelity with monitor audio or spendor

Naim with totem or focal

Linn with its own activ speaker range

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Cyrus and ProAc (especially the Reference 140 or 148 series).
The superb bountiful yet taut bass of the ProAcs does an excellent job of adding gravitas to the "thin" (actually just very crisp and detailed) tone of Cyrus products.

 

[CnoEvil]

Naim/Kudos

Arcam/PMC

Linn/Kef R Series

Electro/Focal

Sugden/Harbeth

Creek/Epos

Cyrus/Spendor

Classe/B&W

Hegel/ATC

Musical Fidelity/Tannoy

 

[record_spot]

Have to say I find the whole thing rather overblown sometimes. Since moving over to actives last year, synergy is less of a problem and nothing like how it affects traditional hi-fi setups.

Mr advice would be to buy wisely and understand what you need. Then find products that give you that functionality. Listen to a few and but as much with one eye on the usability as much as how it sounds.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Since moving over to actives last year

You are clearly the spawn of Satan, sir

 

[Q5]

Arcam / Kef

 

[record_spot]

You are clearly the spawn of Satan, sir

I shall add that to my profile!

 

[Frank Harvey]

Although you may prefer a combination which isn't listed, and isn't considered a good match to someone else's ears...

 

[TrevC]

There seems to be a lot of components which work best when matching, I just wanted to ask if you agree in general with this, and if possible, please feel free to add others to the list or alter/modify my comments

Arcam and sugden with proac

Musical fidelity with monitor audio or spendor

Naim with totem or focal

Linn with its own activ speaker range

It's mostly nonsense. Hifi amplifiers are always engineered for a flat response, so as long as they are capable of driving the speakers you are after then all of them are a match. As far as amplifiers are concerned differences in tonal quality are all in the mind. You just need to find speakers that sound good to you when positioned in your room. Now that really does require some listening.

 

[Native_bon]

If you do a blind test with different amps driving a speaker with a flat response in the same room, many will not be able to tell which amp from which. All things being equal. From my current demos I have done over the last few weeks am beginning to think the source is very important as you go up higher in price. Of course there are always very few expections.