Showing my age - speaker replacement

[Chrisb]

Hi, I'm brand new to this forum and completely out of touch with the latest hifi kit, so looking for some advice on replacing my existing setup, speakers first.

Back in about 1978/79 when I was still at uni I won a competition and became the proud owner of a pair of Tanget RS4 speakers. I suspect very few will even remember these, but back in their day they were getting rave reviews and sounded amazing - at least to my ears. Slightly warm, quite bassy, very English. I think they had Audex drivers and Kef tweeters. I am still using them to this day, combined with a 100w Technics amp and Linn Sondek record deck. I still have a cassette deck from the 80s although I did invest in a more modern CD deck!!

Recently I've been pushing music through the system via Google Chromecast audio - It still sounds fantastic but the kit all looks so dated in the house now that my wife is telling me I've got to change it!

I don't really know where to start. Something tells me I should concentrate on the speakers first. How much should I be looking to spend in order to move up a step or two from the Tangents? I want a clean, not too toppy sound but with decent bass. We tend to listen to music such as Coldplay, Adele, Elton, Springsteen etc. Any specific speaker recommendations would be appreciated. Not worried about size, the sound is the most important.

As stage 2, what would be the best amps to look at?

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks all

 

[keeper of the quays]

Hi, I'm brand new to this forum and completely out of touch with the latest hifi kit, so looking for some advice on replacing my existing setup, speakers first.

Back in about 1978/79 when I was still at uni I won a competition and became the proud owner of a pair of Tanget RS4 speakers.  I suspect very few will even remember these, but back in their day they were getting rave reviews and sounded amazing - at least to my ears.  Slightly warm, quite bassy, very English.  I think they had Audex drivers and Kef tweeters.  I am still using them to this day, combined with a 100w Technics amp and Linn Sondek record deck.  I still have a cassette deck from the 80s although I did invest in a more modern CD deck!!?

Recently I've been pushing music through the system via Google Chromecast audio - It still sounds fantastic but the kit all looks so dated in the house now that my wife is telling me I've got to change it!

I don't really know where to start.  Something tells me I should concentrate on the speakers first.  How much should I be looking to spend in order to move up a step or two from the Tangents?  I want a clean, not too toppy sound but with decent bass.  We tend to listen to music such as Coldplay, Adele, Elton, Springsteen etc. Any specific speaker recommendations would be appreciated.  Not worried about size, the sound is the most important.

As stage 2, what would be the best amps to look at??

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks all

if it were me? I would change the wife! If this isnt possible? Throw yourself at the tender mercys of richer sounds...hope this helps

 

[Al ears]

I understand that changing the wife can be a very expensive pastime. Perhaps some idea of your, or possibly your wife's, idea of budget for said changes might help. ;-)

 

[Al ears]

Aluminium yes, however I don't think Magico do kits.

 

[rainsoothe]

Hi. Depending on budget and room size, I'd look at Spendor, Harbeth, Golden Ear Triton, Revel Performa 3, Focal Aria series. As for amps, depending on the same stuff + speakers, Marantz, Arcam, Naim, Croft, maybe Rogue Audio, Rega, Abrahamsen, and whatever XTZ is gonna release.

 

[tonky]

I remember the tangent rs4 - very sweet sound and a full bass. Around that era I bought the Monitor audio A4 mark 2 (large standmount speakers) - big sound stage and full bass.

A speaker I nearly bought (wish I had really) was the Jim Rogers 149 cylindrical metal standmount speakers. An amazing soundstage - but quite inefficient and lacking deep bass. Mmmmm - so nice.

I often wonder why some other manufacturers don't use this cylindrical shape (reduces standing waves-increases the spaciousness of the sound - so 3 dimensional). The metal cylinder (aluminium I think) Must be extremely rigid - less vibrations/ringing from the metal cabinet. - any kits like this available?

Just my thoughts anyway tonky

 

[nopiano]

I remember the Tangents too, and that warmer sound is less in favour these days. You need to hear a few current designs to get an idea what you might be taking on! Maybe some floor standing speakers would give the weight to the bass you are familiar with. You can get the well reviewed Q Acoustic 3050 for £500 a pair or less.

 

[rainsoothe]

I remember the Tangents too, and that warmer sound is less in favour these days. You need to hear a few current designs to get an idea what you might be taking on! Maybe some floor standing speakers would give the weight to the bass you are familiar with. You can get the well reviewed Q Acoustic 3050 for £500 a pair or less.

Not without auditioning, though, those seemed very bright to me.

 

[nopiano]

I remember the Tangents too, and that warmer sound is less in favour these days. You need to hear a few current designs to get an idea what you might be taking on! Maybe some floor standing speakers would give the weight to the bass you are familiar with. You can get the well reviewed Q Acoustic 3050 for £500 a pair or less.

Not without auditioning, though, those seemed very bright to me.

I agree; listening is essential!

 

[CnoEvil]

I nearly ended up with some Tangents (RS2s, I think), but ended up with Keesonic Kubs instead.

Like others have said, we need more details about budget, room size and whether you want to hang onto that warm sound.

 

[matthewpiano]

If budget allows, some Harbeth speakers with a Quad Vena amp. Good looking, flexible, and with involving sound.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

if it were me? I would change the wife! If this isnt possible? Throw yourself at the tender mercys of richer sounds...hope this helps

A warning to others....

I'm currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I have been having some problems lately. I have been running the same version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever as my primary application, and all the Girlfriend releases I have tried have always conflicted with it. I hear that Drinking Buddies runs fine as long as Girlfriend is ran in background mode and the sound is turned off.

Unfortunately, I can't find the switch to turn the sound off. Therefore, I have to run both of them separately. Girlfriend also seems to have a problem coexisting with my Golf program, often trying to abort Golf with some form of timing incompatibilities.

I probably should have stayed with Girlfriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0. After months of conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has had experience with Girlfriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't have enough cache to run Girlfriend 2.0 and eventually it would require a Token Ring to run properly. He was right, as soon as I purged my cache, and realized that no one in their right mind is installing new token rings, Girlfriend 2.0 uninstalled itself.

Shortly after that, I installed Girlfriend 3.0 beta. Unfortunately, there was a bug in the program and the first time I used it, it gave me a virus. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for a while. I very cautiously upgraded to Girlfriend 4.0. This time I used SCSI probe first and also installed a virus protection program. It worked okay for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my system. I tried running Girlfriend 1.0 again with Girlfriend 4.0 still installed, but Girlfriend 4.0 has a feature I didn't know about that automatically senses the presence of any other version of Girlfriend and communicates with it in some way. This results in the immediate removal of both versions.

The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscure language I can't understand, much less reprogram. Frankly, I think there is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather than the desired functionality.

Also, to get the best connections with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts and I have never liked how GirlFriend is “object-oriented.”

A year ago a friend of mine upgraded his version of Girlfriend to GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version of GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year if you don't upgrade to Fiance 1.0. So he did, but soon after that, he had to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a huge resource hog. It has taken up all his space: He can't load anything else. One of the primary reasons he decided to go with Wife 1.0 was because it supposedly came bundled with a feature called FreeSex Plus.

Well, it turns out the resource requirements of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly the new Plug-ins he wanted to try. On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything. Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw which has an automatic pop-up feature he can't turn off. I told him to trying installing Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before uninstalling itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won't install because of insufficient resources.

P.S. Watch out for the K-I-D-S virus because they have an insatiable appetite for memory and CPU time over and above everything else above.

Now back to the subject.

Decide on your budget and go from there.

I would look at good speakers first, and work backwards from there through the amp, then to your sources. You're unlikely to really improve on an 80s turntable or cassette deck, as both technologies were pretty much at their epoch back then. Maybe a new cartridge for your turntable, but that's about it. Digital sources tend to be a lot less fussy than good old analogue.

After that it's a minefield of brands, models, prices, looks, features....

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Pro-Ac Studio 140 Mark 2. Punchy bass, articulate, detailed, loads of power, but plain looking.

I drove mine bi-amped with Cyrus X-Powers pwer amps in bridged mono mode, a Cyrus Pre-X pre-amp (?), Cyrus DAC-X DAC and a Cyrus X CD transport. Great for the sort of music you're talking about.

Suggestion - use Kate Bush's "The Red Shoes" CD to demo stuff. Look for the detail in "Eat the Music" and the Bass Crescendo in "The Buildings of New York". If either disappoint, move on.

 

[Al ears]

Pro-Ac Studio 140 Mark 2. Punchy bass, articulate, detailed, loads of power, but plain looking.

I drove mine bi-amped with Cyrus X-Powers pwer amps in bridged mono mode, a Cyrus Pre-X pre-amp (?), Cyrus DAC-X DAC and a Cyrus X CD transport. Great for the sort of music you're talking about.

Suggestion - use Kate Bush's "The Red Shoes" CD to demo stuff. Look for the detail in "Eat the Music" and the Bass Crescendo in "The Buildings of New York". If either disappoint, move on.

Good call those ProAcs.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Wish I had never sold mine (Mark Ones).

When I get the cash together (which will be a while 'cos we've just bought a new house) I'm flying back to the UK to buy another pair. There's a dealer I know who will probably sell me a pair VAT free as he's used to dealing with oil industry types and I'll save the air fare over the price differential here to home. The import duty will still be 35%, however I reckon it'll be worth it (especially if I can combine it with a business trip and someone else paying the plane fare).

I'm just not sure whether to go for the 140 Mark 2s or the 148s...