Bharathram
Member
Hi folks,
In spending quite an effort for last few years in identifying a best floorstanders for my preferences , I was sometimes let down because of my budget , mismatch of performance ( sound detailing, sonic quality etc.)
Back when I started in 2008, I was just another guy in this part of the world who was looking for "Hi-Fi" speakers. Any speaker that had a good Bass and distortion less output at higher levels would appease me those days . I remember I spent quite a lot of time listening to the new generation models from Deftech, Klipsch, Polk audio, Energy etc. All these brands were very smart in designing models that had exceptionally different sonic quality in the low freq (<100 hz) and high freq (>2Khz) areas where our ears are not that sensitive. The sound output from these freq bands used to outperform their mediocre performance in the mids , but still sound great to the ears of the listener who is just gaga about the name "Hi-Fi".
After listening to all of them , I was almost sold out on BP8B the new advent bipolars from Def tech. The kind of sound that they produced was just new to the world (giving a 360 degree response ) and had a great appeal for the people who love the bass. But then fortunately
this idea got knocked down because I had to relocate because of my job change ,which posed serious challenges in terms of moving heavy speakers and stuff.
Having moved to a new place (Bangalore) , with the grudge that my inner thirst to own a good speaker didn't materialize :lol: I continued my search in Bangalore . That's when I actually came across brands like Wharfdale, Fluance, Paradigm . Thats when I actually came across this comment that great speakers are not measured by their ability to outsmart the listener by exploiting his weakness in least sensitive areas , but by their sheer ability to reproduce to the sound as intended by the artist who created it!!!
Time went by , and Bangalore gave me a chance to pursue my hobby in home recording and production. This opened my vision on the deeper aspects of sound engineering like how to measure the aesthetic quality of sound, its imaging and details etc. I just had a pair of ATH headphones that I used for monitoring, Grado SR80 for listening.. These gadgets thought me and trained my ears to perceive finer details in the sound than just the sound itself!!
I was extremely happy with these plugs which made a paradigm change to my preferences on measuring a good quality sound system.
After few years I moved back to Chennai and my unmanifested love for a good 2.0 speaker system unearthed again... This lead me to do my second round of audition in search of a good floorstander !! But this time I have decided to move from entry level floorstander to the next . I did some homework , read some reviews from the audiophile communities, narrowed down my choices to few brands and visited high end audio dealers in Chennai. Most importantly I selected my demo tracks to be auditioned The rest of the lines below summarizes my experience with each of the brands and lets u know what I finally got married to !!!
My favourite genre in 80's pop, country, classic rock, post rock, ambient, chillout music
Tracks that I demoed :
Kenny rogers - I don't wanna know why (Pop/Country)
Neil diamond - I am I said (Pop)
Poison - Every rose has its thorn (Rock)
Warrant - Heaven (Rock)
Loungeworx - Silhouette in the sky (Alternative chillout)
Bonnie Raitt - I cant make you love me (Soul/Jazz rock)
Hammock - Tornado warning (Ambient/Alternative)
Speaker reviews
Qacoustics:
This is the first one that I listened to . The dealer has arranged a very neat acoustically superior room, brilliant ambience . The first track that I listened to was by Loungeworx. Its a pure instrumental song with female voice over, just enough bass , electric piano , layered guitars ,synth pads, trumpets towards the end.
Qacoustics opened with a decent detail on the female voice over. I was waiting for the verse start which opens after 1st minute with brilliant harmony on the bass, piano and layered synth and drums. To my surprise Qacoustics showed great detail in this verse with very decent separation. The bass was just tight and there was no crossover problem that I could sensibly hear.
I followed this up with the rock ballad from Poison . I purposefully played this understand the deftness that Qacoustics could reproduce on the changeover from the initial acoustic guitar that opens the song to the intermediate lead that matches the taste of any power rock ballad lovers. Qacoustics handled this very neatly with not distortion , but not great to the extent of goosebumping
The other track auditions were pretty decent , but not extraordinary. In the end I almost got a feeling that I am listening to a Bose satellite speakers in pleasant volumes.
To sum up:
Pros:Very neat frequency response, good separation, Medium detail, No distortion
Cons : Not suitable for high volumes, doesn't give you a feel of tower speaker in terms of energy it gives you
Revel by Harman:
An usual boom boom machine by Harman. Absolutely suits the public that are crazy about volumes and level of bass. Very bad crossover. I could hardly hear the mids and highs were attenuated
Pros : Can find any
Cons : Everything except the size of the speaker
B&W 683:
A little improvement from Revel . In my personal opinion I think these speakers are just overrated. Its only their plat series that has the quality that an audiophile expects
Pros : Good looking, No noise at higher levels
Cons : Too costly for the quality
Def tech BP8B :
Sonically sound machine. The rock ballads particularly sound well because of heavy bass produced by the bipolar effect. Posting these speakers play a major role in the quality . I played 'Love over gold' by Knopfler. There is hardly any distortion in the higher levels that I played. But IMO I could hardly hear any mids . All I could hear is the lows and the highs...Voice overpowered by the bass and drums.
Its a good choice for people who don't expect much detail in the song and mostly passive listeners......
Pros:
Great stability at higher levels, Good bass response
Cons:
No mids, Highs muffled by overpowered bass
Energy, Klipsch and Polk audio
To me all these fall under the same category... I listened to multiple models RTI A9's , Reference II series etc. They suit home theatre freaks who use it for effects but no audio freaks especially the ones who look for finer details
Monitor Audio : Silver & Bronze series
The Audio people guys were extremely hospitable and the person who dealt with me had a great understanding of what I looked for. More than that it was fortunate that we both shared similar taste of music !!! I told him the budgets and he quickly picked up the speaker basket that he wants to demo to me.
I told him that I own a Onkyo 7.2 receiver and hence asked him to demo using the AV receiver and not a pure 2.0 amplifier. He quickly set the room up and I was particularly impressed with him using a switchover device to hear the difference between the speakers upfront . The demo started and he asked me to select the song that I like the most. I selected Kenny rogers and he played it with no delay.
This Kenny rogers song is not his usual genre of country. Its an urban country song . (Rock + country + Pop) . The song opened with brilliant EP pianos on the background and the soulful voice of Kenny started after the intro. I must admit that I have not heard such detail in Kenny's voice in any other floorstander that I had listened to. I felt like standing up and paying respect for that great soul that designed these marvellous boxes...
The next in line is Sihouette in the sky by Lounge worx . As I mentioned earlier this is one of my all time favourite instrumental chillout song. The song has an inherent divine character (particularly the bass line) because of its brilliant mixing and mastering. Now its time to play it !! The song opened with voiceover intro and then this moment of bliss happened. Monitor Audio RX6 made me sink into my soul when the verse started with a divine blend of piano, synth pads and drums. The shop guy could easily sense I am sold out already with this jewel !!
I followed it up with Neil diamond's 'I am I said'. I particularly picked this song up to test the voice separation that the speaker could provide. When Neil's voice started I could hardly make out that the sound was coming from the speakers. It was like Neil is singing right in front of me. Monitor audio exposed the enormous depth in Neil's voice which I have never experienced earlier. My father (big fan of Neil) who was there with me for the demo said that he started loving this pair of speakers more than Neil now !!!!
The other songs played much better than any other speakers that I have listened to .
Now the price !! Its way higher than the budget I had. But in music its like "Once you listen to the best , there is no looking back"
When I took some time to think whether I should stretch my budget, my father said " You get only one chance to see the best and I think it occurred to you now. So don't think ...Just grab it" . Now you know what I got married to. Yes its Monitor audio RX6 silver series..
Pros : Superb detail, Amazing separation, Just enough bass
Cons : I could hardly say anything
Mod's note: Corrected the model of B&W speakers in wake of the ensuing discussion.
In spending quite an effort for last few years in identifying a best floorstanders for my preferences , I was sometimes let down because of my budget , mismatch of performance ( sound detailing, sonic quality etc.)
Back when I started in 2008, I was just another guy in this part of the world who was looking for "Hi-Fi" speakers. Any speaker that had a good Bass and distortion less output at higher levels would appease me those days . I remember I spent quite a lot of time listening to the new generation models from Deftech, Klipsch, Polk audio, Energy etc. All these brands were very smart in designing models that had exceptionally different sonic quality in the low freq (<100 hz) and high freq (>2Khz) areas where our ears are not that sensitive. The sound output from these freq bands used to outperform their mediocre performance in the mids , but still sound great to the ears of the listener who is just gaga about the name "Hi-Fi".
After listening to all of them , I was almost sold out on BP8B the new advent bipolars from Def tech. The kind of sound that they produced was just new to the world (giving a 360 degree response ) and had a great appeal for the people who love the bass. But then fortunately
this idea got knocked down because I had to relocate because of my job change ,which posed serious challenges in terms of moving heavy speakers and stuff. Having moved to a new place (Bangalore) , with the grudge that my inner thirst to own a good speaker didn't materialize :lol: I continued my search in Bangalore . That's when I actually came across brands like Wharfdale, Fluance, Paradigm . Thats when I actually came across this comment that great speakers are not measured by their ability to outsmart the listener by exploiting his weakness in least sensitive areas , but by their sheer ability to reproduce to the sound as intended by the artist who created it!!!
Time went by , and Bangalore gave me a chance to pursue my hobby in home recording and production. This opened my vision on the deeper aspects of sound engineering like how to measure the aesthetic quality of sound, its imaging and details etc. I just had a pair of ATH headphones that I used for monitoring, Grado SR80 for listening.. These gadgets thought me and trained my ears to perceive finer details in the sound than just the sound itself!!
I was extremely happy with these plugs which made a paradigm change to my preferences on measuring a good quality sound system.
After few years I moved back to Chennai and my unmanifested love for a good 2.0 speaker system unearthed again... This lead me to do my second round of audition in search of a good floorstander !! But this time I have decided to move from entry level floorstander to the next . I did some homework , read some reviews from the audiophile communities, narrowed down my choices to few brands and visited high end audio dealers in Chennai. Most importantly I selected my demo tracks to be auditioned The rest of the lines below summarizes my experience with each of the brands and lets u know what I finally got married to !!!
My favourite genre in 80's pop, country, classic rock, post rock, ambient, chillout music
Tracks that I demoed :
Kenny rogers - I don't wanna know why (Pop/Country)
Neil diamond - I am I said (Pop)
Poison - Every rose has its thorn (Rock)
Warrant - Heaven (Rock)
Loungeworx - Silhouette in the sky (Alternative chillout)
Bonnie Raitt - I cant make you love me (Soul/Jazz rock)
Hammock - Tornado warning (Ambient/Alternative)
Speaker reviews
Qacoustics:
This is the first one that I listened to . The dealer has arranged a very neat acoustically superior room, brilliant ambience . The first track that I listened to was by Loungeworx. Its a pure instrumental song with female voice over, just enough bass , electric piano , layered guitars ,synth pads, trumpets towards the end.
Qacoustics opened with a decent detail on the female voice over. I was waiting for the verse start which opens after 1st minute with brilliant harmony on the bass, piano and layered synth and drums. To my surprise Qacoustics showed great detail in this verse with very decent separation. The bass was just tight and there was no crossover problem that I could sensibly hear.
I followed this up with the rock ballad from Poison . I purposefully played this understand the deftness that Qacoustics could reproduce on the changeover from the initial acoustic guitar that opens the song to the intermediate lead that matches the taste of any power rock ballad lovers. Qacoustics handled this very neatly with not distortion , but not great to the extent of goosebumping
The other track auditions were pretty decent , but not extraordinary. In the end I almost got a feeling that I am listening to a Bose satellite speakers in pleasant volumes.
To sum up:
Pros:Very neat frequency response, good separation, Medium detail, No distortion
Cons : Not suitable for high volumes, doesn't give you a feel of tower speaker in terms of energy it gives you
Revel by Harman:
An usual boom boom machine by Harman. Absolutely suits the public that are crazy about volumes and level of bass. Very bad crossover. I could hardly hear the mids and highs were attenuated
Pros : Can find any
Cons : Everything except the size of the speaker
B&W 683:
A little improvement from Revel . In my personal opinion I think these speakers are just overrated. Its only their plat series that has the quality that an audiophile expects
Pros : Good looking, No noise at higher levels
Cons : Too costly for the quality
Def tech BP8B :
Sonically sound machine. The rock ballads particularly sound well because of heavy bass produced by the bipolar effect. Posting these speakers play a major role in the quality . I played 'Love over gold' by Knopfler. There is hardly any distortion in the higher levels that I played. But IMO I could hardly hear any mids . All I could hear is the lows and the highs...Voice overpowered by the bass and drums.
Its a good choice for people who don't expect much detail in the song and mostly passive listeners......
Pros:
Great stability at higher levels, Good bass response
Cons:
No mids, Highs muffled by overpowered bass
Energy, Klipsch and Polk audio
To me all these fall under the same category... I listened to multiple models RTI A9's , Reference II series etc. They suit home theatre freaks who use it for effects but no audio freaks especially the ones who look for finer details
Monitor Audio : Silver & Bronze series
The Audio people guys were extremely hospitable and the person who dealt with me had a great understanding of what I looked for. More than that it was fortunate that we both shared similar taste of music !!! I told him the budgets and he quickly picked up the speaker basket that he wants to demo to me.
I told him that I own a Onkyo 7.2 receiver and hence asked him to demo using the AV receiver and not a pure 2.0 amplifier. He quickly set the room up and I was particularly impressed with him using a switchover device to hear the difference between the speakers upfront . The demo started and he asked me to select the song that I like the most. I selected Kenny rogers and he played it with no delay.
This Kenny rogers song is not his usual genre of country. Its an urban country song . (Rock + country + Pop) . The song opened with brilliant EP pianos on the background and the soulful voice of Kenny started after the intro. I must admit that I have not heard such detail in Kenny's voice in any other floorstander that I had listened to. I felt like standing up and paying respect for that great soul that designed these marvellous boxes...
The next in line is Sihouette in the sky by Lounge worx . As I mentioned earlier this is one of my all time favourite instrumental chillout song. The song has an inherent divine character (particularly the bass line) because of its brilliant mixing and mastering. Now its time to play it !! The song opened with voiceover intro and then this moment of bliss happened. Monitor Audio RX6 made me sink into my soul when the verse started with a divine blend of piano, synth pads and drums. The shop guy could easily sense I am sold out already with this jewel !!
I followed it up with Neil diamond's 'I am I said'. I particularly picked this song up to test the voice separation that the speaker could provide. When Neil's voice started I could hardly make out that the sound was coming from the speakers. It was like Neil is singing right in front of me. Monitor audio exposed the enormous depth in Neil's voice which I have never experienced earlier. My father (big fan of Neil) who was there with me for the demo said that he started loving this pair of speakers more than Neil now !!!!
The other songs played much better than any other speakers that I have listened to .
Now the price !! Its way higher than the budget I had. But in music its like "Once you listen to the best , there is no looking back"
When I took some time to think whether I should stretch my budget, my father said " You get only one chance to see the best and I think it occurred to you now. So don't think ...Just grab it" . Now you know what I got married to. Yes its Monitor audio RX6 silver series..
Pros : Superb detail, Amazing separation, Just enough bass
Cons : I could hardly say anything
Mod's note: Corrected the model of B&W speakers in wake of the ensuing discussion.
Last edited by a moderator:
