Speaker Poll/$1,000 Max

[newbsterv2]

Hi everyone. I was listening to my headphones today (Grado SR-60's which are laid back and kind of tizzy but very enjoyable) and also have been listening to a lot of live music lately and was wondering what most people thought was the most transparent, neutral, airy, smooth, and non-fatuiging speaker under $1,000 with the restriction being of course that the speaker is a bookshelf design. Solid and relatively tight bass(how many ported designs can really qualify as being prefectly tight?) down to 45-50hz is also a must in a smaller to small medium sized room. I understand that some bright recordings need an overly smooth speaker to counter the effect of excessive trble and vice versa but I'm assuming the listener has some sort of tone controls to counter the effects of a "bad" recording and that a neutral speaker is considered ideal. I hope this thread gets a lot of action!!

[N. Abstentia]

Paradigm Studio 40 fits the bill perfectly!

[psonic]

Dynaudio Audience 52 has to be amoung the best under $1000.

[Buzz Roll]

Try the Green Mountain Audio Europa - time coherent, 1st-order designs excell in all of the criteria that you mention. Bright recordings are often the fault of bright speakers.

[drseid]

I would recommend auditioning the Opera Audio Consonance Eric-1 mini-monitors. Hard to find, but well worth the effort, IMO.

[topspeed]

Bright recordings are often the fault of bright speakers.
Bright recordings are the fault of a hot mix. A transparent speaker simply gives you what it's fed.

[LEAFS264]

Give the PSB Stratus Mini's a listen. See what you think!

[RGA]

I don;t think you want a speaker to compensate for bad recordings because they'll also be compensating for good recordings making them less than good. You have no way to truly know if a recording is good or not..just because the sound is bright or spitty doesn;t mean the speaker is telling you what is on the disc -- it very well could be the speaker which adding noise etc to the resulting sound.

It's hard to get this though to people but I have heard speakers that are rpetty damn flat to 20khz around -1db down and another speaker that can claim the same on the graph - listening to the two one sounds fatiguing and bright or S's on female vocals strident and disconnected with some sort of hickup between drivers that the other speaker doesn't exhibit.

There is more to a speaker than bass and treble as well -- if you are continually noticing the sound - you're probably missing the music. If the thing doesn;t sound like one single instrument is a convincing way then it does not matter how much bass,treble and how great the off axis response and soundstage and imaging is -- lots of speakers do those things fantastic but not for one second convince me in any way that I'm hearing properly reproduced music...and 90% of the stuff out there fall into the good measured response (though limited in useful measurements) but sound banal.

[Buzz Roll]

A transparent speaker simply gives you what it's fed.

That's true, but still I think most speakers under a $1000 are not transparent, and most of them are too bright. That's just me.

Like RGA said, just because something sounds bright, doesn't always mean that the mix is bright. What I was getting at was many speakers these days overcompensate the high end to achieve an illusion of detail, usually at the expense of the overall sound.

[icarian]

The Dynaudio Audience 52 is my vote and it is definatly not bright or fatiguing. There are hundreds of speakers in this price range so hearing them all would be next to impossible, but i can say that the 52 is the best that I have heard in this price range. Good luck.
Icarian.

[paul_pci]

The Dynaudio Audience 52 is my vote and it is definatly not bright or fatiguing. There are hundreds of speakers in this price range so hearing them all would be next to impossible, but i can say that the 52 is the best that I have heard in this price range. Good luck.
Icarian.

I second this vote, and if you can kick in some extra bucks, I'd go with the Dynaudio 52se (special edition). Simply amazing.

[NickWH]

Agree with above, you can't go wrong with the Audience 52 unless you don't have the right associated equipment.