Speakers to match Audiolab 8000A

[admin_exported]

Hiya, first post, nice to meet you all :cheers:

So basically I'm in the middle of getting my first proper hi-fi set up and need a pair speakers to match the Audiolab 8000A, which I got off ebay a few weeks ago. I've trawled through the deep crevices of the interweb and have seen people recommending several epos and mission speakers, although the one downside is that although they describe the speakers to all have great midrange, they are a bit shy in the bass department. Now I don't want speakers with copious amounts of bass, but I do - amoungst other things - listen to a lot of ambient and eletronic music so I do need the bass to be present.

So bascially I need a good set off speakers up to £150ish to match my Audiolab 8000A.

Thanks.

 

[toyota man]

Hiya, first post, nice to meet you all :cheers:

So basically I'm in the middle of getting my first proper hi-fi set up and need a pair speakers to match the Audiolab 8000A, which I got off ebay a few weeks ago. I've trawled through the deep crevices of the interweb and have seen people recommending several epos and mission speakers, although the one downside is that although they describe the speakers to all have great midrange, they are a bit shy in the bass department. Now I don't want speakers with copious amounts of bass, but I do - amoungst other things - listen to a lot of ambient and eletronic music so I do need the bass to be present.

So bascially I need a good set off speakers up to £150ish to match my Audiolab 8000A.

Thanks. mission 752s you should be able to find some on the bay within your budget great speakers all round I ran a pair with my 8000a for years and now my Son is running them with an 8000a which I bought him off the bay you will find them hard to beat for the Money good luck

 

[Frank Harvey]

I'd look at the used market to get the most out of your 800A. Back in the day, I used to like the Epos ES11 and the Ruark Sceptre with the 8000A.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Duffers and welcome!

You have made a good choice in the audiolab 8000a, it is recognised as having a excellent "neatural/transparent" quality enabling it to team with an unusually wide range of speakers, allowing their own qualities to show through. Your musical tastes are very similar to my own and I found it difficult to find a speaker that accurately reproduced the fine nuances electronic and ambient music contains and yet retained the dynamic range necessary to keep the music "alive"

After a very long search and trial and error, I eventually stumbled across a pair of Celef PE1 Domestic Monitors....wow was I surprised, a 1980's stand-mount design by Lewis Tyler, when he traded as Celef before becoming Pro-Ac of which he is today Chairman, still designing speakers...the rest is history as they say!

The Celef PE1 particularly suits our tastes because it has a sound very similar to the Quad ELS elecrostatic, with a piezo electric super-tweeter, providing the sweetest top end, a well respected audax tweeter and a very capable Kef B200 mid/bass driver producing a decently extended but well controlled bass line. Fortunately, Celef is not a well known name, if the badge on them said Pro-Ac, you would be looking at a fortune, but add about£50.00 to your budget and watch ebay ( i have seen two pairs on ebay already this year) for a decent pair, I honestly do not think you will find anything that will so well suit your purposes, my audiolab 8000a makes them sing like nothing else I have tried and believe me I tried!

 

[AEJim]

I'd look at the used market to get the most out of your 800A. Back in the day, I used to like the Epos ES11 and the Ruark Sceptre with the 8000A.

I can vouch for the Ruark Sceptre's on the 8000A, had them both running with a Micromega Logic CD player and was a great, tight & punchy sound. The Sceptre's were quite underrated speakers, just had to be careful not to overtighten the Allen bolts which came loose over time!

 

[Anonymous]

Cheers for the replies guys. And yeah I forgot to mention that I'm more than happy to go used. Firstly the Epos models are too expensive, I bid on a pair of Epos 11's a few weeks back and they ended up going for £240, which is sadley too far than I can stretch. Ideally my budget would be around £300 but just can't afford it. I've had a quick look on ebay for the celefs and Ruark Spcetre's, but no luck at the minute, will keep an eye out.

Also I agree Fidelity Fella. I have a rather large collection of eletronic music, and without adequete bass reproduction it would make my collection pretty obsolete. I can't imagine listening to Autechre and Aphex Twin with bright speakers And ofcourse all them other frequencies are important as well, can't be dealong with repressed mids and highs (I made that mistake already when I bought a pair of sonyxb's a few years back).

Also, there are a pair of Mission 751's on ebay at the minute with decent stands, does anyone have an opinion on them?

 

[markshaw5774]

Hello,

apologies for turning up late to the party but I've been running Mission 751s off my Audiolab 8000a since 1995 (slightly ashamed to admit) but I have absolutely loved the set up - so much so that every time I've been tempted to upgrade I haven't been persuaded (without changing the amp too). Really good combination in my opinion

 

[series530]

I wonder if I can hijack this thread and ask some further questions:

I have an Audiolab 8000A together with Kef Q80 speakers which I purchased new back in about 1991. It's the model with the black facia.

The amplifier has served me well over the years but, of late, I have been wondering if the sound is as good as it could be. Much of reasoning for this is a feel that the higher frequencies are lacking but this may well be down to my age and degrading hearing.

Just as an experiment I attached a Wharfdale Diamond 10.0 to one channel and noticed a more toppy sound and less bass (partly I guess due to the smaller speaker chamber of the Diamond). I did the same with a Q Acoustics unit and experienced a similar effect. This exhausts my collection of althernative speakers to compare against.

Due to room shape, the speakers need to be in corners and can probably be no more than about 2 foot from the wall (with full length curtains sitting behind them in the corner).

So, this got me wondering if, with a reasonable outlay, I could improve the sound from the system by substituting in a different pair of speakers. If the change is going to be small it probably isn't worth the cost or effort but, if the change is going to be significant, then a few hundred pounds could probably be justified. The thing is that I really don't know how well rated the Q80's are against anything else out on the market either as a new or a used purchase.

In terms of music that I enjoy (prepare to cringe! : ), much of it comes from web streaming these days using Spotify Premium at the highest bit rate that I can get. I'm not really a classical fan preferring more general rock music and some of the newer stuff - all great given the ability to sample what is available for a one off cost using Spotify.

Thanks in advance.