Audio Speakers guidance for Indian classical music

krs222

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Hello to everyone. I'm a new member of the forum.

I'm an Indian Classical music listener (Both south indian and hindustani).

Have been searching for good budget speakers. Have a Yamaha 6130 amp and sonodyne 100RMS active sub woofer.

Tested JBL Control one, Sonodyne, Telome, etc.

While JBL and Telome look sound good on film music, they sound quite flat for classical music.

Most people tell me that I should go for towers for classical as the base is more clearly amplified in towers and sub-sats cannot process low base audio.

Is this correct. Though I'm positive on Telome, unfortunately I just connected two borrowed speakers directly into the amp. Will the sound quality be different if I connect them through Telome sub-woofers (as they do in the telome studio)?

BTW, the family also watches movies and listens to other forms of music.

Do give me guidance on the right speakers for me. Around 100 RMS per channel should suffice.
 
hi krs222

You have decent AVR and sub. Now for speakers what is the budget you are working with? I have similar listening taste as you and have heard very good reproduction from bookshelves as well.

Hello to everyone. I'm a new member of the forum.

I'm an Indian Classical music listener (Both south indian and hindustani).

Have been searching for good budget speakers. Have a Yamaha 6130 amp and sonodyne 100RMS active sub woofer.

Tested JBL Control one, Sonodyne, Telome, etc.

While JBL and Telome look sound good on film music, they sound quite flat for classical music.

Most people tell me that I should go for towers for classical as the base is more clearly amplified in towers and sub-sats cannot process low base audio.

Is this correct. Though I'm positive on Telome, unfortunately I just connected two borrowed speakers directly into the amp. Will the sound quality be different if I connect them through Telome sub-woofers (as they do in the telome studio)?

BTW, the family also watches movies and listens to other forms of music.

Do give me guidance on the right speakers for me. Around 100 RMS per channel should suffice.
 
Great.

Do suggest some good bookshelves too.

My budget is around 20-25K for 5 speakers. Hope this would work.

KRS
 
Hello to everyone. I'm a new member of the forum.

I'm an Indian Classical music listener (Both south indian and hindustani).

Have been searching for good budget speakers. Have a Yamaha 6130 amp and sonodyne 100RMS active sub woofer.

Tested JBL Control one, Sonodyne, Telome, etc.

While JBL and Telome look sound good on film music, they sound quite flat for classical music.

Most people tell me that I should go for towers for classical as the base is more clearly amplified in towers and sub-sats cannot process low base audio.

Is this correct. Though I'm positive on Telome, unfortunately I just connected two borrowed speakers directly into the amp. Will the sound quality be different if I connect them through Telome sub-woofers (as they do in the telome studio)?

BTW, the family also watches movies and listens to other forms of music.

Do give me guidance on the right speakers for me. Around 100 RMS per channel should suffice.

Hi there, first things first - if Hindustani/ Carnatic is your poison, get the mid-range right. I cannot emphasise this strongly enough. Other considerations - soundstaging, imaging, highs, 'airy' presentation, lows - are nice if you get them in the solution you opt for, but will not make a huge difference simply because of your choice of music. The nature of most Indian classical music, and the way most of it is recorded, both drive the above observations. Most of the emotional impact comes from the vocal or the lead solo instrument. There are few accompanists, and the recording philosophy is mostly 'live in studio'.

Look for speakers with the right mix of warmth and detail, and a slightly forward mid-range presentation. In an ideal world, nothing stops a floorstander from possessing these qualities. But realistically and if budget is a strong consideration, you're best off with a pair of quality bookshelfs for the same price. Floorstanders at entry level are subject to a lot of compromises on the driver/ crossover selection.

Equally, you can use the bookshelfs as fronts for your movies, and I daresay they will improve the multichannel experience as well (clarity of the spoken word, ambient music etc).

There are a couple of nice current threads on budget standmount auditions - please browse through those.

Hope this helps.

Persiflage
 
to start things off, listen to the monitor audio speakers. the silver series bookshelves would be ideal for your listening though may be a little above budget. the bronze series bookshelves would be in budget - they're good but not as good as the silver series

what is important is for you to go out and listen to a few brands. you will be able to tell the difference between brands and tell whats important to you and whats not. we've all got personal choices when it comes to listening to music
 
Dear KRS,
I very much agree with Sree Persiflages opinion.In many of the forums,what referred to as classical is western form.Western classical is different from Indian classicals (Both Hindustani and Carnatic).In western has to do more with harmonic use of so many instruments together..say base guitar,violin etc.They must sound better in a Floor stander (of similar price bracket) where the low bass becomes important.

But Indian classical music is more "individualistic",more sweet and melody oriented where midrange becomes more important.Here a bookshelf scores over a floor stander.They are generally considered to give better clarity and details
again of (of similar price bracket).]

Apart from these general rules,its your music,your ears,your heart...!!.Best wishes.
 
But Indian classical music is more "individualistic",more sweet and melody oriented where midrange becomes more important.Here a bookshelf scores over a floor stander.They are generally considered to give better clarity and details
again of (of similar price bracket).]

Very true. The greatest jazz pieces have nice technical virtuosity but very poor melodic phrasing as compared to say Lagudi Jayaraman's Thillanas or a light classical rendition of SindhuBhairavi with flute and violins. This is a cultural thing. They do not have the exposure to Indian melodic scales and most of their western instruments do not allow microtonal experimentation hence they are culturally "deaf" to it. But this is OT. (What have I heard? Pretty much all the hallmark pieces from the 50s onwards) :)

About Indian Classical music - on audiophile quality equipment, I've had a very disappointing experience with most music labels except "Music Today". I feel Indians culturally do not pay the same attention to soundstage and overall effect and the lack of focus on this front from sound engineers to composers results in recordings best played on surround speakers. Westerners build edifices of sound layered upon sound - like a Taj Mahal, while Indians obsess with the complexities of melodic structure and lose so many years training exploring the nuances, they forget about depth of soundstage, "right hand embellishments" that make notes quiver, rasp, breathe etc... you might hear these from our classical masters, but more infrequently than from a western chamber musician who play less complex melodies but with more decorations.

I have had to reject 50 or more CDs purchased in the last few years because the recording quality is very poor with labels like RPG SaReGaMa and likes. These labels cater to middle class Indian market with 2-in-1s and the quality is such.

Case in point is Mastero's Choice by Ram Narayan (Sarangi) by Music Today vs Best of Ram Narayan by SaReGaMa. In the latter the tabla dominates and distracts from the Sarangi-bani of Panditji while the former is a beautifully well balanced recording that lets me focus on the melodic lines and embellishments to the notes with the accompanying tabla subdued to just the right level - the former is perfect for late night falling asleep moments, the latter not so. Most vocal tracks in Indian classical have the singer's voice in one ear and the tabla and harmonium in the other courtesy the channel mixing, creating a very discordant listening experience. The same CDs sound wonderful on my PC surround speakers though.

Kosmic is another good label, although I do have a bad recording by them also, on the whole their CDs make my setup sound really good.

So I would say, choose you your label carefully as you choose the artist.... and the speakers :D

Cheers
 
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Frankly you should go for good book shelves. I really do not see why you would need a subwoofer for Indian classical music. As pointed out earlier a good midrange is what you need. Deep bass is really not there in Indian Classical music. A sub woofer would really never do any work here.

If on a budget wahrfedale 9.1/10.1 is good. The Tannoy F1 is also good. Would work decently with your Yamaha on stereo mode.

If you want to splurge look at Dynaudio, Spendor , Harbeth ATC etc but then you would need better amplification for these.
 
sourabh and gobble have noted the points absolutely correctly - I listen to a fair bit of classical (Indian and Western). To me the lack of quality recordings is the reason, it is not wholly accepted around the world as reference recordings.

I would also add that not only the mids but the lows are very important for the genre. There are are times when Zakir or Vikku or Balamurali Krishna go down so low that the tone just get cut off even with high quality speakers.

Once you are sure that you have quality recordings, then I would go for decent bookshelves and later addition a sub. B&W, Usher, Ascend, Monitor Audio, ... are the usual midrange culprits. For a higher budget, look into Totem, Dali, B&W, Dynaudio...
 
This is quite an old thread. But some of the responses have been top notch - especially the one by Gobble. I agree with him in most of the points he makes.

For the OT, a brand I would suggest as far as classical music is concerned, would be EPOS.
 
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