Fancy stereo speakers REDUX (you there, WhyFi?)

pitu · November 2009

http://joeyroth.com/ceramic-speakers/

pretty pretty pretty. what do you think?

flux · November 2009

seems like a good deal for $500. however, the frequency response is not that great and could be reproduced from a $50 pair of speakers. The speaker's sensitivity is also poor. Although it comes with a 15 watt amp, you will have to crank it up all the way to get some decent Db's.

On the other hand it looks really cool and girls that don't know any better will get impressed.

whyfi · November 2009

Oy.

Well, they look nice.

No bass. Don't know how they claim the top end extension without a tweeter. I'd bet my pinky that most of the stats were taken going downhill with the wind to their backs. Buy them if you really like the design, but don't expect them to sound like 500 bucks.

I haven't listened to these things, but I know the reviewer and I'd wager that they'd sound better at $200 -
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-9946736-47.html?tag=mncol;txt

cool the kid · November 2009

For the $$$ nothing beats these

http://www.google.com/product_url?q=http://salestores.com/pionee162.html&fr=ALfC2iSdlWAKiGSRTCOfMBAYn3cPgzFgr0PnqMR8PaUu2rOv9tkCxz0euSg99IShneqa96CiaKPgF_TK6EhidGMd39edoaS5Pc3YSVglCWTCAAAAAAAAAAA&gl=us&hl=en&sa=title

And if you don't like them, $100 for a pair of decent speaker cabinets is still pretty good

Speakers in the original link have about as much value as a pair of BOSEs

<--- rocks to a pair of Snell e/iiis

brooklynjack · November 2009

Speakers I have

Vintage Yamaha NS 690 from the late 70's Love these speakers hook them to my Yamaha amp, also vintage 1970s Too bad its in storage as I don't have the room for them. At the time I tried the 690s and the more expensive beryllium domed NS 1000 and though the 1000 were too bright sounding

I have 2 sets of book shelf speakers some Polk R 15 and some Klipsch ( I forget the model)

idlewild · November 2009

I have a pair of Opera Callas's. (sp?) . Gorgeous audio.

whyfi · November 2009

I like my DeVore Gibbon 9s.

idlewild · November 2009

DeVore's are the shit. I'd love to get a pair and hook them up to a Shindo pre-amp and power amp.

carnivore · November 2009

I have a pair of Rogers dB101s and a Velodyne sub hooked up to my Marantz integrated amp.

idlewild · November 2009

When my PC was up and running I had a Marantz Solid State hooked up to a 47 Labs DAC which in turn was running off a Creative FX External Sound Card. I ran a pair of Totem Mites speakers of the amp and Flight Sim never sounded so good. The heat radiating off the amp was a bit of a bitch.

che · November 2010

Has anyone heard a Peachtree Nova?

My 1992 Sony bookshelf system has finally lost both its cassette deck and its CD player, and lately most of my music is on my Mac. So I'm wondering whether a little device like a Nova and some new speakers (like Peachtree's) would be a worthy improvement over just running an audio cable straight into my old bookshelf's RCA jacks. Anyone heard one?

I mean, I know nothing is going to make 128 KBPS MP3s sound like a live performance, but I'm wondering if there's a real boost to be had for, say, 320 KBPS AACs or lossless formats.

whyfi · November 2010

I sold the Peachtrees. Solid performance and flexibility for the money, but their QC has had ups and downs. Still the benchmark for an integrated with DAC at the $1000-ish pricepoint.

In and around that range, you might also want to check out the Simaudio Moon i-.5. Fanfuckingtastic little integrated amp (you'll want to pick up a little DAC for the computer thang, take a look at the Musical Fidelity v-DAC for $300). Oh, and the Simaudio carries a 10-year warranty - they're very well built.

[shill]Side note - I still have an integrated amp that I'll eventually get around to selling. It's $3k piece, I'll let go of it for less than half that. PM for details, if interested. It's decidedly better than the above mentioned. (Don't worry - I'm still happy to field questions about gear that I'm not selling, too!)[/shill]

edited to add - between the Peachtree and the Simaudio - the Peachtree will have a little more punch and drive. The Sim will slaughter it in tone - if you like hearing the texture of the horsehair bows sliding across strings, the breathiness of a sax or the resonance and body of a guitar, there's no comparison.

che · November 2010

Thanks for the suggestions. So, to put the next question in a way that might be useful to someone besides me:

Let's assume cash is finite and that I want to buy everything between my Mac and my ears. Seems I'm going to want speakers, and then an amp and a digital-analog-converter (combined as in the Nova, or separate). It's often suggested to put as much money as possible into speakers. But what kind of ratio optimizes tone, and does that ratio vary depending on whether the total cash cap is, say, $1K or $2.5K? E.g. is it absurd to spend 1200 on an amp and DAC and 600 on speakers?

whyfi · November 2010

If someone tells you to put as much money as possible in to the speakers, they don't know what they're talking about.

While there are no hard and fast rules, I would generally put more money in to the amp than the speakers. When this issue would come up, I would often have customers listen to something along the lines of: $1k speakers with a $5k amp vs $5k speakers with a $1k amp. The $5k speakers with $1k amp never - never - won out. That being said, there are occasionally exceptional values or specific needs that will throw things out of whack. The best thing to do would be to pick a budget and listen to complete systems within that budget. Normally, I would pick out one or two systems strictly within budget and let them know if something significantly better was within shooting distance (I'm the kind of person that gets pissed off if I buy something and then I find out, later, that 15% more money would have gotten me a much nicer whatever).

Must run for now - more later.

Fancy stereo speakers REDUX (you there, WhyFi?)

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