sxetnrdrmr wrote:

Hello all!

New guy here to the forums. Looking to get into and retouch base with the High end audio world. I am a professional musician by trade - spent lots of time on the road and in studios - as well as a music teacher/band director, but have been out of touch with this side of music listening due to being "nomadic" for the past 15 years. My recent listening platform has been my iPod and studio headphones, or my car stereo. Percussion is my main instrument, and bass guitar is my second love. Hold a BME from Otterbein University in Westerville OH.
Any help and guidance will be appreciated for sure!!

Rock and/or Roll!!!

Can't help much without some specifics:

1) Exactly what gear, make and model, do you have now.

2) How big is the listening room?

3) How much are you considering spending?

4) What kinds of music will you listen to, and how loud do you want it to be able to go.

Start with speakers. Speakers can have wildly different sound profiles and require different amps to drive them. There are plenty of mainstream systems that will sound good and deliver a nice, immersive sound stage. Other systems can deliver astonishing detail and others will be laid back and are just meant to relax and listen. You need to hear different speakers and decide what you like both from a sound perspective and from an aesthetic perspective.

I would try and listen to as many brands as you can and don't let the giant jackasses in the audio stores sway you. Everyone has an opinion on what sounds best and those opinions are right for them. My experience with audio stores is there is an above average chance you are going to run into someone like "Comic Book Guy" from the Simpsons and unless you agree with their interpretation of good sound, you are an idiot. I have literally had one sale rep tell me the tracks I listen to are bad and if I just changed my taste in music, I would get better sound. It hasn't disuaded me and I am almost 25 years in this hobby.

You need to find the sound profile you like. I would try and hear mainstream brands like PSB, Monitor Audio, Revel, Kef, Wharfedale, Polk, Paradigm, Rega, Cambridge Audio, Klipsch and any others you can find. These will range from warm Wharfedale to bright like Paradigm. Warm speakers are generally a bit laid back and you can listen to them for hours. They can be revealing but if they aare more laidback, they will be more forgiving of mediocre source material and you may feel like you are missing something. Bright speakers can push into a tinny or grainy sound in high pitches at their worst and be very fatiguing. At their best, they are astonishingly revealing and can deliver serious wow moments. B&W tends to be forward (super revealing without being tinny) while I find Klipsch bright. Cambridge Audio's Aeromax line feels laid back while Wharfedale just feels warm. You get the point.

Plus there are more esoteric products that are worth looking at if you can find the, Zu audio makes ultra efficient, single driver speakers that sound amazing with the right power amp and can be driven to deafening volumes with 3-5 watts of power. Magnepan which produces planar speakers produce gorgeous sound but high current and clean power. To deliver the same sort of volume that Zu can deliver with 3w of power, you might need 300w to get the same output out of a Magneplanar.

The point is, listen, listen, listen.

If you can find dealers, I would consider these musts

Kef - neutral to slightly forward
Revel - slightly forward
B&W - Forward
Klipsch - Bright, works well with lower power tube amps
Paradigm - Bright, also good with tube amps
Wharfedale Diamond and Reva - Warm
Cambridge Audio Aeromax - laid back
Zu - Ultra bright, requires low wattage tube or solid state gear like First Watt. Not bright with the right amp.
Magnepan - Neutral, interesting sound but requires a power amp that can deal with low impedance
Monitor Audio - neutral to warm depending on the line - Silver is neutral while Gold is warm
Polk - Neutral to bright and really shows off the different sound profiles of amplifiers

There are tons of other brands. Tons that make lovely speakers. You just need to find the ones you like. Then, once you do, the amp will follow and your sources will be easier to pick out.

For speaker shopping, try and take your own music that you are familiar with across a spectrum of music and take a notebook and describe what you like and don't like while listening. It makes comparisons in different places easier.

Ah, a musician. Given your line of work, allow me to suggest giving Dynaudio loudspeakers a listen. I’ve become quite a fan, and have two pairs for listening/home stereo use and a pair of their studio monitors as well.

Since you’re a bassist and percussionist, it seems like the perfect match.

I would add the following speakers to your lists :
Focal, Vandersteen, Vienna Acoustics, Sonus Faber, Wilson Audio, Magico, YG Acoustics, Linn.

If you have big budget I would highly consider Linn system which consists of Linn DS/DSM (either Magik, Akurate or Klimax) with their corresponding speaker choices. With Linn, you can go Exakt setup, which means that digital audio signal remains in digital domain all the way through the speaker. You have to use their Exakt active speakers. They are really expensive. Linn recently released Katalyst DAC architecture on their Klimax, Akurate, and Magik DS/DSM. The Linn Klimax DS with new Katalyst DAC architecture is probably the best sounding and the most musical streamer/DAC I've ever heard for under $50k. You will literally have to go up to DCS Vivaldi full stacks level or Esoteric Grandioso full stacks level or the MSB Reference DAC level in order to get better fidelity and musicality on digital front end components in order to beat the new improved Linn Klimax DS with new Katalyst DAC architecture sonically.

On the more budget friendlier side I would highly recommend the new B&W 702 S2 speakers paired with either higher end Rotel electronics or entry level Classe Sigma gears. These new B&W 702 S2 speakers are direct replacements for the recently discontinued B&W CM10 speakers.
I used to own a pair of B&W CM10 in the past and they were great but the new 702 S2 are quite a bit better in all areas...more refined, musical, smoother high ends, more realistic and natural organic sounding compared to the CM10 and the rest of the CM series. With these new 700 S2 series speakers you get a sense of musical presence with larger broader more open soundstage than with the discontinued CM S2 series speakers. Better image depth and more solid and focus image presentation as well, in which the CM series loudspeakers somewhat lack imo. Both the CM and the new 700 S2 speakers provide good amount of musical details and nuances but I felt that with the new 700 series I heard more presence and better musical nuances overall.

I've heard these new B&W 702 speakers recently at the shop and the speakers were paired with the Rotel RA-1592 integrated amp (Rotel's flagship stereo integrated amp). They sounded fantastic together. I've also heard them being driven by Rotel separates (Rotel RC-1590 preamp + Rotel RB-1582 Mkii power amp) and they sounded even better. These new B&W 702 S2 and the rest of the new 700 series lineup will give you the best bang for your bucks performance wise. They are very affordable and performed phenomenal especially considering their retail prices. They are huge improvements in all areas from their predecessor CM series S2 they replaced. The new B&W 702 S2 retail for $4500/pair.

Their 705 S2 stand mount speakers are the ones that stand out most imo especially considering their asking price, assuming your listening room isn't too large. These retail for $2500/pair without speaker stands. These new 705 S2 replaced the CM6 but are way better than the CM6 they replaced.

Hope this helps.

I'm a pro musician too (teaching brass, conducting pupil ensembles).
It took me one year to find my speakers. Don't buy any of them before trying them in your listening room. Take acoustic measurements in the room and the spakers must interact with your room.
If your room is big enough I would buy (second hand) Magnepan 3-series, a tube pre amp (giving a live feeling) and a big solid state power amp (necessairy for Magnepan).
Carefully measure and listen for the best place and the best place for your listening chair.
Analoque blayback will give you more live feeling then digital. Buy an old idler drive like THorens or Garrard.
Just my opinion after 40 years experience.

The main problem I've had with finding good sounding speakers is that so many speakers sound loud, harsh and distorted in the upper midrange. I brought home a pair of B&W small speakers (it was the speaker everyone was raving about five years ago) and they sounded shitty to me. When I took them back two days later the guy at Best Buy was real annoyed that I was bringing them back. Anyway, I finally settled on Polk Rtia5 speakers. They seem to sound pretty good and laid back with most source material. I know there are much more detailed sounding speakers, but with much of the crappy source material we have ,especially CD's which were mastered for maximum loudness, the Polks seem more forgiving in their sound than many more high end speakers. Also added a B&W sub, which was one of the only ones I listened to that didn't sound boomy and muddy. It's a powered sub with 400 watts so it relieves the amp of the heavy lifting which is good because the Polks are pretty power hungry.IMO our biggest problem is shit source material which, to me, renders expensive high end gear a waste of money if all it accomplishes is to demonstrate to us how truly distorted and unlistenable most of our source material is. I know there are excellent well mastered recordings,but in my experience they're so few and far between that I gave up.I just got a new CD of Beck's "Morning Phase" and it sounds pretty bad so I went on the DR database and sure enough the DR of the CD is virtually zero.
This is why highres formats like SACD and highres files seldom make sense since they cannot improve on a shit recording.

Marvelousmarkie wrote:

Ah, a musician. Given your line of work, allow me to suggest giving Dynaudio loudspeakers a listen. I’ve become quite a fan, and have two pairs for listening/home stereo use and a pair of their studio monitors as well.

Since you’re a bassist and percussionist, it seems like the perfect match.

THANK YOU! Finally someone who woke up and realized the immense potential in these Danish/German wonders! Ever since I skipped my JBL speakers way back, I've been absolutely in love with the sound of DynAudio. Even their cheaper models are great, but moving up a bit on the expense scale, their speakers will generally provide astonishingly accurate and natural music reproduction. Do yourself a favour. Give them a listen!