Moving on from Elac F5 and Yamaha R-N303

Pratyush J

Active Member
Joined
Nov 23, 2020
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216
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Location
Jaipur
Dear FMs,

Happy to be part of this esteemed forum which has become a one stop for all things Audio / Video. I am from Vijaywada, moved to Jaipur after marriage in Feb. Until Feb I was enjoying Elac F5 paired up with Yamaha R-N303 which I left with my elder brother in Vijayawada. My experience has been good with this combination but nothing great. The speakers were kept at about 6 feet apart with no toe in, as I like a wider sound stage. Mids were good and I did not have to sit at the sweet spot always to enjoy it. The bass was good, but overshadowed the mids even if volume was increased slightly. At below than avg volume all was good, but with slight increase in the volume the boxiness became very prominent and had to lower the volume. Since the old setup was in a small house, so volume had to be kept low. In my present house we have 15X 17 dedicated room and just want to have a 2-channel setup. Source would be BT pairing with phone or the .flac on my laptop. I am looking for a very balanced sound, with good bass (not a bass head). My volume will always be bit on a higher side, so highs, mids and lows should not smudge. Vocal clarity and music presence are very important for me.

Few of my favourite tracks apart from AR Rahman & Bollywood:
  • Tin Pan Alley
  • Rocking Chair
  • Walk on the Wild side
  • Bohemian Rhapsody
  • 500 miles
As of now I am looking for a complete 2.0 setup with in the budget of 1.5L (5-10% +/-). I searched the forum and came across few threads, but did not find what I was looking for. This might be a repetition but can I get a direction? Auditioning is very difficult as of now, but will try what ever is possible based on the advice here.

Many thanks - Pratyush
 
You can also checkout Q acoustics concept 40 speakers. For stereo amplifier you can check with hifimart.com anil for more suggestion.
 
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Thanks @musiz_craze for your suggestion. Will check it out. I have auditioned Polk RTi A5 & A7 and they sounded good, but nothing extraordinary. They were paired with Denon 1600 in the showroom. During auditioned I observed that they both were running at almost 75 dB on Denon but still felt that they sounded lower than what Denon displayed may be due to acoustics or due to sensitivity.
 
Thanks @musiz_craze for your suggestion. Will check it out. I have auditioned Polk RTi A5 & A7 and they sounded good, but nothing extraordinary. They were paired with Denon 1600 in the showroom. During auditioned I observed that they both were running at almost 75 dB on Denon but still felt that they sounded lower than what Denon displayed may be due to acoustics or due to sensitivity.
I think you need add power amplifier + dac to get the full output of this speaker. Polk are really good for movies . For music I don't think so it is the right choice.
 
150k is very good budget for stereo setup . With careful selection of components, you may have a great sounding system which you may enjoy for longer time.
I will suggest few components for audition before any purchase...
Stereo receiver/Amplifiers...
Marantz products are well known for their musicality, great build quality. They are the first choice of any audiophile .
Marantz PM7000n
This is Integreated amplifier with music streaming capability through their HEOS app.
Marantz NR1200
This is stereo/network receiver with music streaming capability through HEOS app. You may get more I/O connections , bass management, calibration system etc for perfect tuning of system .
There are other manufacturers who have same features products like
Denon DRA-800
Onkyo TX - 8270
Pioneer SA N30ae
Yamaha RN-803( already aware)

Onkyo and Pioneer come with in built MQA decoder which is certainly an added bonus over others. Make sure to cross check this feature before purchase. Some FM complained that this feature is not available in Indian models.
All above products come with network streaming capability with theirs own music streaming apps. Make sure about all features before purchase.
Integreated amplifiers
Cambridge audio CXA80/61
Cambridge audio AXA85/100
Raga Brio
Audiolab 6000a
Marantz PM7006/8005/6

are some of the favorites amplifier among FM. You need to have separate source or music streaming device.
Speakers. Some of the amplifier come with USB Audio type C connections so that you can directly connect your Laptop as music source.
Monitor Audio Bronze 6
This is a discontinued model from Monitor Audio but great speaker for music lovers. They may be available on great discounted price.
Dali obrian 6
It is understood that Dali Obrian series is better than Zenser series in terms of sound quality.
Q Acoustic 3050i
One of the versatile speaker for music as well as movies. Matches well with most of the amplifier.
There are more speakers within this budget but I find these speakers are very good for music.
I have not auditioned all mentioned components but had auditioned few of them.
Make sure to audition all components from your list before purchase.
Music source is also one of the key factor so consider that also before purchase.
 
Thanks @rpmahale for such a comprehensive list. I checked out Q Acoustic 3050i yesterday and they sounded good with Denon 3500 but the moment I increased the volume it became too bassy even in acoustically treated room to the extent that vocal clarity took a back seat. I have also come across few threads where QA center is not a great match for 3050i, so I will be stuck with this setup if my better half wants a HT setup in future. Along with 3050i I auditioned concept 40 as well, man what a beautiful speaker to look at and better than 3050i in terms of sound presentation at the sweet spot. But felt the sound stage was very narrow, it became very busy with increase in the volume and the instrument placement was no longer there, the bass presentation was lacking a bit as well. My ELACs had a wider soundstage and sounded much more livelier. To be honest, I did not like spending 95K for concept 40 as I felt I will be too restricted to the sweet spot and average volume. I checked Paradigm 6000 and liked the vocals very much but they missed the refinement that I was expecting. I am not sure if I can audition Dali or MA in Jaipur, let me try. Being moving around for a while, but not liking anything as of now.

Hunt continues...
 
Hey @Pratyush J ,

Since you have already tried the integrated side, why not go with separates.
I always felt separates are better over the integrated ones. With your budget I think you can definitely get something really nice. Here is a thread that talks about some of the Indian HI-Fi that is comparable with Best in class international products.
I am personally using the IndiqAudio in my chain and have been very happy. May be some of the FM’s like @fLUX @musiz_craze @SiddharthY can cast their experiences as well. If you happen to visit Bangalore, it’s worth your time to audition them.

Regards,
Som
 
It seems you auditioned all your speakers driven by an avr, IMHO a stereo amp can make a big difference for dedicated music listening. Do keep that in mind while auditioning your next speakers.
 
Dear FMs,

Happy to be part of this esteemed forum which has become a one stop for all things Audio / Video. I am from Vijaywada, moved to Jaipur after marriage in Feb. Until Feb I was enjoying Elac F5 paired up with Yamaha R-N303 which I left with my elder brother in Vijayawada. My experience has been good with this combination but nothing great. The speakers were kept at about 6 feet apart with no toe in, as I like a wider sound stage. Mids were good and I did not have to sit at the sweet spot always to enjoy it. The bass was good, but overshadowed the mids even if volume was increased slightly. At below than avg volume all was good, but with slight increase in the volume the boxiness became very prominent and had to lower the volume. Since the old setup was in a small house, so volume had to be kept low. In my present house we have 15X 17 dedicated room and just want to have a 2-channel setup. Source would be BT pairing with phone or the .flac on my laptop. I am looking for a very balanced sound, with good bass (not a bass head). My volume will always be bit on a higher side, so highs, mids and lows should not smudge. Vocal clarity and music presence are very important for me.

Few of my favourite tracks apart from AR Rahman & Bollywood:
  • Tin Pan Alley
  • Rocking Chair
  • Walk on the Wild side
  • Bohemian Rhapsody
  • 500 miles
As of now I am looking for a complete 2.0 setup with in the budget of 1.5L (5-10% +/-). I searched the forum and came across few threads, but did not find what I was looking for. This might be a repetition but can I get a direction? Auditioning is very difficult as of now, but will try what ever is possible based on the advice here.

Many thanks - Pratyush
You have pretty much listed everything out there in the market for the amplifiers :) . It will be a matter of how flexible your budget is and what are you willing to compromise on. Going for all in one solutions like Denon-DRA800H/PM7000N/RN803 would be ensuring minimum clutter , the have decent amount of power as well but might not be as well implemented as the ones you have listed after that.

Amongst the next lot the Audiolab 6000a is feature packed amplifier as in it has bluetooth , multiple digital inputs, has preouts incase you want to invest in a dedicated Power Amplifier in the future and also has an inbuilt DAC whereas the PM8006/Rega Brio dont have any (not sure about CXA81). Power output wise the PM8006 and CXA81 would be good but you will need to invest in a dedicated streamer-dac/DAC to connect your source to which will set you back by another 10-30k.

As @Prodigy mentioned if space is not an issue and you are willing to invest then do get seperates. You can mix & match components as per your speaker. This would basically mean you will need a source (which you already have in terms of Bluetooth streaming/Local FLAC fileds), a DAC which has USB/Optical/Bluetooth so you can stream or connect them to your phone/PC/Laptop/TV and then a Power amplifier.

If i consider a budget of upto 90-95k for FS then i would suggest the below
i) QAcoustics Concept 40 - Very refined speakers, i had the Concept 20 their BS counterparts and they were really amazing clarity and details wise. I have not auditioned the FS but common complaint i have heard is bass is little less for a FS
ii) XTZ Spirit 11 - These are very neutral speakers and true to the source. They have crystal clear mids, detailed hights and have really tight and amazing lows. My only gripe would be that they lack a little energy which can be corrected by right source/amp pairing
iii) IndiQ Platinum Achal - I had an audition of the same and these are really amazing speakers. They have very good lows due to the 10 inch sidefiring subwoofers , good mids and detailed & sparkling highs. These easily outperform every other FS i have heard in this price range. They also offer you a return window of 15 days incase you dont like the same.

Personally in this price bracket i have heard offerings from KEF/XTZ/Focal Chora/SVS/ELAC/QAcoustics 3050i/Sonodyne/Polk & I liked the IndiQ Platinum Achal the most.

For the amplifiers i would suggest to go the route suggested by @Prodigy ,would be the most expensive but also the best route. Again here IndiQ Saptak is the recommended PA for under 1L , I use them with Focal Aria 926 and they do absolute justice to the same. You can get a Topping DAC for about 20-25k and you are good to go. IndiQ Saptak- 89k, Platinum Achal - 89k and DAC - 20k totals to about 1.98L , I understand this is much higher than your budget but would be worthwhile spending the extra money as this rivals setups costing much more.

If you do not wish to spend as much, you can get an IA and a DAC. @Kumar442244 is selling an used Marantz PM8006 at a good price and you can pick that up and purchase a good DAC like Topping D50s/SMSL-SU8 at about 20-25k. Totaling to about 78-80 for the amp+DAC and 90k for speakers this would come within your budget +/- 10% . If you like Marantz house signature (warm sounding with some bump in mids) this would be a really good setup. The Marantz should pair well with all of the above setups.
 
Thankyou @Prodigy @Anshul_J, @musiz_craze and @fLUX for insight into various options available. Coming to budget, I would rather spend extra and get something that I will enjoy for next 5- 7 years rather than saving 30-40K and start looking for upgrade within 1 year. I have gone through few posts where people are selling 2 - 3 month old gear as they did not like the SQ. Let me PM you and get more details.

@musiz_craze can you please respond to my PM? You comments along with the comments already received from FMs will help me make up my mind. More data points will make me feel less miserable if the decision goes bad :)
 
Thank you @musiz_craze for such a detailed comparison between INDIQAUDIO and other brands including Polk S55,S20,S10, Elac 5.2,6.2, debut 2.0 , Q acoustics 3050i,concept 20,40, 3020i , klipsch. Based on the feedback from other FMs on this forum and through PMs, I see vocal clarity, presence, tight and controlled bass are some of the strengths of all their speakers. I am going for couple of auditions this weekend and see if I like any of them and will update this thread with my decision. Again a big thankyou to all the FMs for their invaluable support
 
Hi, Nice thread. You are going to build a great stereo setup.
Btw i am also from Jaipur and wondering from where you are going to source such high end equipments.

Edit : and where you are auditioning in Jaipur?
 
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@Cooladitya007, that's the issue no HIFI store in Jaipur with various brands. I am in Delhi these two days and planning to visit Bass N Treble, Audio Nirvana, ProFx and few others (courtesy my BIL ;-)
 
@Cooladitya007, that's the issue no HIFI store in Jaipur with various brands. I am in Delhi these two days and planning to visit Bass N Treble, Audio Nirvana, ProFx and few others (courtesy my BIL ;-)
Are you still in delhi if yes please find the price of Taga Harmony Tav-506 and Tsw-90 V.4 sub woofer for me if you visit any HiFi dealer in Delhi.

Thanks.
 
Sure Aditya

Finally I am back in Jaipur after spending Sunday moving around to few places. I auditioned likes of Klipsch, Monitor Audio and Dali in acoustically treated rooms, ideally I would have liked them in a regular space and not treated ones as sound there will be very different from how it will sound in my room. Off all I liked MA Silver 200 FS, had a good bass and presence. It was paired up with Denon 3500. I also happened to speak to indiq audio before leaving for Delhi and they offered one of their initial customer's place for demo in Gurgaon, which was anyways on my way to Delhi. That place was a living room with their tower speakers, power amp and Marantz 1509 (posting a click of their setup with their permission). They were very accommodating in letting 2 of us in their home. We spent 30 mins there and we both were quite impressed, especially vocals and tight bass. Since this was the first demo on our way to selected dealers so the expectations were set quite high for the next place, not sure if this played any role in us not liking other offerings apart from monitor audio.

In a nut shell, MA Silver 200 FS is very good, but for 1.75L I would be exhausting my complete budget by a good margin and still left with no Amp. Slowly and slowly I am realizing the drawback of living in a tier 2 city. My previous city Vijayawada was not that bad. @Cooladitya007 sorry, none of the places I visited had these products.
 

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Hey! Looks like you managed to audition a lot of stuff out there. What did you decide?

The Platinum Achal’s from Indiq is quite amp friendly and has a good sound signature. I recently hooked up a loaned 8W ACA from a friend and it could happily drive these towers. I can say, these speakers are very well designed and punch much higher and can stack well against some of the sub1.5L offerings from well known brands.

Regards,
Som
 
Finally I am back in Jaipur after spending Sunday moving around to few places. I auditioned likes of Klipsch, Monitor Audio and Dali in acoustically treated rooms, ideally I would have liked them in a regular space and not treated ones as sound there will be very different from how it will sound in my room. Off all I liked MA Silver 200 FS, had a good bass and presence. It was paired up with Denon 3500. I also happened to speak to indiq audio before leaving for Delhi and they offered one of their initial customer's place for demo in Gurgaon, which was anyways on my way to Delhi. That place was a living room with their tower speakers, power amp and Marantz 1509 (posting a click of their setup with their permission). They were very accommodating in letting 2 of us in their home. We spent 30 mins there and we both were quite impressed, especially vocals and tight bass. Since this was the first demo on our way to selected dealers so the expectations were set quite high for the next place, not sure if this played any role in us not liking other offerings apart from monitor audio.

In a nut shell, MA Silver 200 FS is very good, but for 1.75L I would be exhausting my complete budget by a good margin and still left with no Amp. Slowly and slowly I am realizing the drawback of living in a tier 2 city. My previous city Vijayawada was not that bad. @Cooladitya007 sorry, none of the places I visited had these products.

Good to hear that you got to listen to a decent amount of brands, if you had auditioned the Concept 40 & KEF Q750/950 as well maybe you could have got a better idea of the 1L range performance overall. The Platinum Achal do offer amazing value far beyond the price you pay and there are very few FS who are balanced across the spectrum at that price range and offer such deep bass as the Achal.

If you are thinking of going for 1.75L-2L then you have many others you can add to the mix including Focal Aria 926, KEF R5 & Revel Performa F205. If you enter this range then you will have to spend an equal/greater than speaker amount on the chain to make them sing to their potential and it becomes quiet a rabbit hole at the end of the day.
 
Thanks @Prodigy and @fLUX for helping me in deciding the right gear. You both are right, indiqaudio's towers came across as a very balanced speakers, I did not feel that they are lacking in any department. Seeing both of your signatures, it is very evident that you both have gone through lot of grind before stopping at your present configuration. Let me talk to indiqaudio again and take it from there. Thanks once again
 
For excellent sound that won't break the bank, the 5 Star Award Winning Wharfedale Diamond 12.1 Bookshelf Speakers is the one to consider!
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