Audio setup - specific for listening to ghazals

[keith_correa]

Speakers: Floorstanders OK with you or are you constrained with bookshelf (misnomer) speakers? How far ahead of the backwall do you have the liberty to place these?

Room: Size? A q&d diagram with dimensions will help including pointing out location of speakers and listening position. What will the room be furnished with?

 

[spirovious]

For Ghazals , Norge amps are VFM. Owner of Norge (Mr.Shyam Bajaj) would prefer Philips CDP + Norge amp with Norge speakers. Heard that setup in Norge showroom/office and it was sounding warm(vocal presentation with less details)

 

[screwgauge]

For Ghazals , Norge amps are VFM. Owner of Norge (Mr.Shyam Bajaj) would prefer Philips CDP + Norge amp with Norge speakers. Heard that setup in Norge showroom/office and it was sounding warm(vocal presentation with less details)

yes, I have read about them. Btw Mr Shyam Bajaj passed away and some Mr Laxman is now incharge.

Speakers: Floorstanders OK with you or are you constrained with bookshelf (misnomer) speakers? How far ahead of the backwall do you have the liberty to place these?

Room: Size? A q&d diagram with dimensions will help including pointing out location of speakers and listening position. What will the room be furnished with?

Thanks for your response. I am attaching the layout of the room I plan to put them in. Initially I was planning on the study, but after a few iterations, I have decided on placing them in the bedroom. Would love to hear your inputs.

 

[irv]

My friend recently got the Swans


May I know which Model of Swan did your friend get??

 

[Mayasandra_l]

Thanks for your response. I am attaching the layout of the room I plan to put them in. Initially I was planning on the study, but after a few iterations, I have decided on placing them in the bedroom. Would love to hear your inputs.

You could think of a Murphy Bed. This would free up space during listening sessions. I have done the same to one of my guest bedroom that doubles up as my primary listening room.

 

[Kannan]

My friend recently got the Swans


May I know which Model of Swan did your friend get??

Dont remember. It was sub 10k

 

[screwgauge]

You could think of a Murphy Bed. This would free up space during listening sessions. I have done the same to one of my guest bedroom that doubles up as my primary listening room.

But why is that required? I have ample space with the current layout.

 

[[email protected]]

+1 to @Yogesh and @nvnaveen . @screwgauge, Being a proud owner of Indiqaudio Tower Achals and Saptak since early this year and after having auditioned number of branded ones including QA, Paradigm, Elac, KEF, Monitor Audio, I can vouch for Indiqaudio towers and their amps. The towers have very very lively vocals, which will make your Ghazals come alive, trust me. You can have Node2i paired up with a good R2R DAC + Saptak + Achals

You can never go wrong with Indiqaudio products, more so when they are backed by exceptional service including 15 day trial, custom laminate shade and 3 year warranty. Read that their 2nd group buy has turned out to be even more successful than the 1st one.

Talk to them once and you will yourself realize why they are so much loved on this forum. Here is the ownership thread on them.

Hi regarding Indiqaudio wish to talk with you...can you share your whatsapp number?

Very true! I have recently changed to a Spendor Classic and the amplifier is leben. Loving the combination

Hi Debojit - wish to listen to your setup...can we connect?

 

[jbkar]

Please take audition of Tannoy speakers with Dual Concentric driver paired with tube amp. IMO these are most suitable for your kind of listening preference.

 

[himadri]

I was impressed with the Harbeth P3esr after listening to a Jagjit Singh Ghazal at my friend's place driven by a Yamaha receiver. I have since aquired them.They do the human voice particularly well. You can look at a Harbeth based system .

 

[manek]

Here is my two cents. Since you specify it is a study, I presume a relatively small room and possibly a working desk for you.
I perceive a near field listening.
Since the budget is quite high, I am sure you can spare 5% of it to trial.
For the rest 95% as the amount is big, you can audition mutiple gears including the suggestions by other members to finalize which would mean spending quite sometime. In your 95% budget, block some money for treating the room a bit for which you can take some expert advise or do it yourself if you are awarr about acoustics.

In the meantime, in the 5% or the 25000 max, invest in some good active bookshelf for near field listening.
It can remain your secondary clutter-free setup and give an idea of how your room behaves before jumping into the higherend gear.

You can look at Swams, Audioengine and a few others.
My friend recently got the Swans and us very satisfied with its performance, especially with respect to vocals.
Get something that also offers wireless connectivity.

Happy hunting.

Active apeakers are indeed a great idea and with that budget you can get really good stuff like Genelec, Adam, Dynaudio, Focal, Quad, KEF, Tannoy and the list goes on……if i were you I would go for a good two way bookshelf+Tube amp or an active two way monitor with a 6-7 inch mid-bass driver which will cover for a reasonable amount of LF. Maybe a speaker with a dual concentric driver like tannoy and KEF would do great too for this application. This is probably a good use case for a full range driver implementation as well but i do feel at some point in time down the road you might pop another question “how do I hookup a tweeter to my full range driver speaker ?”(Been there, heard that, done that) .

 

[manek]

Please take audition of Tannoy speakers with Dual Concentric driver paired with tube amp. IMO these are most suitable for your kind of listening preference.

Good choice

Thanks for your response. I am attaching the layout of the room I plan to put them in. Initially I was planning on the study, but after a few iterations, I have decided on placing them in the bedroom. Would love to hear your inputs.

One point to note, my experiences with speaker placement when there is a door to one side and a wall on the other, unless the door is super heavy, thick and doesn't rattle when shut, its best to put the speakers on the opposite wall where both side walls are of the same material.

 

[krell]

hi, i am also listen mostly ghazals, i settled with vintage15"jbl 3way speakers with horn midrange and never looked back, before jbl i tried very very well-known brands and never satisfied, once jbl comes in my room, that's end of my hunt, jbl L300 was mated with krell 100s and lumin t1 as streamer and source

 

[Naturelover]

A thread on Lyrita

My new setup from Lyrita Audio

Sharing 1st Picture of my audio setup from Lyrita audio. We took simple approach of Single ended tube amp with 300b tubes and 45/2a3 driver tubes. The speakers are built with Altec compression drivers which created smooth transition of music flow from my earlier setups of Harbeth/Tannoy etc. It...

www.hifivision.com

 

[screwgauge]

Still looking for options Have been busy so haven't auditioned a lot of setups yet.

Given I am very lazy and would prefer a lot of convenience, I am wondering if Naim Uniti Atom with matching speakers would be a good setup for this genre? Would appreciate your thoughts on this.

There’s a Naim super uniti all in one player and Totem forest floor standars are available if you are interested, please see on website for details.

Sorry, I missed this. Where was/is this combination available?

 

[arj]

Still looking for options Have been busy so haven't auditioned a lot of setups yet.

Given I am very lazy and would prefer a lot of convenience, I am wondering if Naim Uniti Atom with matching speakers would be a good setup for this genre? Would appreciate your thoughts on this.


Sorry, I missed this. Where was/is this combination available?

Naim Uniti should be good and from what have learnt british speakers like PMC/Spendor/B&W/Tannoy would be easy to recommend. I would add Fyne Audio which falls squarely into the tannoy camp and something I personally love and have heard working exceptionally with Naim

The beauty of all-in-ones is it takes component matching and cables challenges out and something like a Naim already renowned for timing can only be good. The only challenge is its "just" 40W , While I have run tannoys with a 15W denon all in one with no issue, abd currently run them with a 20W Amp, I would suggest a little more careful speaker option and hence B&W and PMC and to some extent spendors may not be the ideal match. While wattage is not really a great indicator of how well it can drive a speaker, since its an all in one better to be conservative. Hence speakers like Tannoy/Harbeth/Fyne and their ilk would be good. Epos is another really good speaker but they do have a 4ohm drop so not that confident.

Whats the budget you are considering ? as I mentioned before, Gazhals mean you need a speaker which does micro-dynamics well and can catch all nuances as well as reproduce the midrange richness very well.

There are lot of great speakers and presentation changes a lot from one to the other but they all can sound good and one of them will sound the best depending in the ear hearing it

 

[screwgauge]

Whats the budget you are considering ? as I mentioned before, Gazhals mean you need a speaker which does micro-dynamics well and can catch all nuances as well as reproduce the midrange richness very well.

Thanks for your respone.

I was thinking of a budget between 4-5L. I might be able to get the Naim from the US via a friend and then carry it around to audition the speakers locally

Tbh, I am looking for a system which I will use. Not fuss around with multiple devices, connectors, power supplies and think of upgrades every time I switch it on. I am in the rabbit hole of my other hobbies and just want to get a nice and convenient system which provides for a good listening experience.

 

[arj]

Thanks for your respone.

I was thinking of a budget between 4-5L. I might be able to get the Naim from the US via a friend and then carry it around to audition the speakers locally

Tbh, I am looking for a system which I will use. Not fuss around with multiple devices, connectors, power supplies and think of upgrades every time I switch it on. I am in the rabbit hole of my other hobbies and just want to get a nice and convenient system which provides for a good listening experience.

Are naims power agnostic ie work across the voltage range ? if its a 110V then using with a convertor will downgrade the sound and it may be a better option to buy it from elsewhere . Naims usually are far more sensitive to power by design ( not sure of the Unity range )

since you are in Gurgaon/Delhi lots of places to test out with the Naim and perhaps the best way to audition speakers !!!

 

[screwgauge]

Are naims power agnostic ie work across the voltage range ? if its a 110V then using with a convertor will downgrade the sound and it may be a better option to buy it from elsewhere . Naims usually are far more sensitive to power by design ( not sure of the Unity range )

I will have to order one which is wired for 220/50Hz. The transformer is rated for both 110V/220V but the winding cables need to be rewired and the fuse needs to be changed. However, I would prefer getting hold of one which is natively 220. I am checking with a few dealers. Else I might try to source it from the UK.

I can't find a dealer in India who has it in stock.

 

[druk2004]

Hello folks,
Greetings from Gurgaon!

I am a software engineer and in my mid 40's We are in the processing of renovating our apartment and in the process, I might able to get my own study (which I have long wanted) and a small room to enjoy music.

I primarily listen to Ghazals - Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hassan, Jagjit Singh, Talat Aziz etc. I also like listening to Ustaad Rashid Khan, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Thurmis and light Indian Classical music. I use TIDAL for all playback and we also have a Spotify subscription.

I have an old Onkyo home theatre which hasn't been used in ages. We have a Devialet Phantom (Silver) in the living room which we share in the family for casual listening. A week ago I also picked up a FiiO M11 Pro and Campfire Solaris for portable listening and am enjoying it so far.

I am here specifically seeking advice for a player + amp + speakers setup specifically for Ghazals. What would be an ideal setup for a budget of around 5L? Would you advice consulting with a dedicated audio store? I am aware of Bass N Treble, Sound by Design and a few others.

Thanks for all your suggestions
Cheers,
Suman

I have very similar choice of music and exploring similar setup .... had a lower budget in mind ... but am flexible ....

My suggestion would be to shortlist Top 20 songs that you would like to use for testing the system. Trust me, its not an easy task.
And try to have the FLAC or WAV files of same in a CD ... so that you are not dependent on any streaming service for the auditions.
Have a mix of good recordings [like Talat Aziz Manzil, Meraj-E-Ghazal, Some Jagjit Singh recordings (those are always excellent from mixing perspective) and then also include some from Ghulam Ali and Mehdi Hasan (these are generally not so efficient from recording/mixing)

Also, select few songs which can test how good the system responds to Tabla Bayan Gamak ... this is very essential for Ghazal music listening.
You can try Hazir by Hariharan + Zakir Hussain and few others ....

Happy Hunting and closely following !!

Roy
Gurgaon
[Engineer & Tabla Player]