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  1. #1
    RGA
    RGA is offline
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    Personal taste is fine Ajani if that is the choice one makes. People buy the Quad 57 and a huge segment of audiophiles hold it up as one of the finest speakers going. But most of those buyers also realize whther they want to say it or not - that they are woefully inaccurate loudspeakers. Most of us know that if one wants to listen to "Thunderstruck" on a set of loudspeakers that Quad and speakers like it are completely hopeless and that in no way shape or form do they meet even remotely the intent of the band or the recording engineers.

    My issue is certainly not people's choices - I very much like the 2905 myself for what it can handle - but unfortunately a lot of people start trying to claim it as some sort of superior form of speaker or that is "accurate" because it is "lighter" and creates less distortion. My contention is that Dynamics and bass and drive (depending how you know it as) are the main sources of creating distortion (bass dynamics especially) and so it's easy to get rid of distortion by simply avoiding presenting the sound as it was intended in the first place.

    Lesser boxed speakers with a lot of resonances and boxy presentations - virtually every $3,000 and under(and sometimes very expensive speakers) floorstander with several drivers stacked on each other with a metal tweeter and poly/Kevlar woofers make their boxes present on everything unfortunately.

    Classical music recordings that typically focus on violin, cello, flute, clarinet, oboe, French Horn typically get butchered by a lot of gear - doesn't get buthered at all on a Quad 2905 which lives for this stuff. It has a gentle downward slope in the treble so rarely gets harsh and bass isn't really needed for it, and typical listeners don't listen very loud. Meanwhile many boxes will imprint some sort of boom or ping in there or the drivers don't integrates and you get this weird isolated sound. Even the top Wilson Maxx3 despite the huge price and being run by top tube amps sounded all over the place - something that a speaker like the KingSound and Martin Logan or Quad had virtually no issues with.

    It's a fascinating industry because many makers have a variety of approaches and beliefs as to what is the superior presentation.

  2. #2
    Ajani
    Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    Personal taste is fine Ajani if that is the choice one makes. People buy the Quad 57 and a huge segment of audiophiles hold it up as one of the finest speakers going. But most of those buyers also realize whther they want to say it or not - that they are woefully inaccurate loudspeakers. Most of us know that if one wants to listen to "Thunderstruck" on a set of loudspeakers that Quad and speakers like it are completely hopeless and that in no way shape or form do they meet even remotely the intent of the band or the recording engineers.

    My issue is certainly not people's choices - I very much like the 2905 myself for what it can handle - but unfortunately a lot of people start trying to claim it as some sort of superior form of speaker or that is "accurate" because it is "lighter" and creates less distortion. My contention is that Dynamics and bass and drive (depending how you know it as) are the main sources of creating distortion (bass dynamics especially) and so it's easy to get rid of distortion by simply avoiding presenting the sound as it was intended in the first place.

    Lesser boxed speakers with a lot of resonances and boxy presentations - virtually every $3,000 and under(and sometimes very expensive speakers) floorstander with several drivers stacked on each other with a metal tweeter and poly/Kevlar woofers make their boxes present on everything unfortunately.

    Classical music recordings that typically focus on violin, cello, flute, clarinet, oboe, French Horn typically get butchered by a lot of gear - doesn't get buthered at all on a Quad 2905 which lives for this stuff. It has a gentle downward slope in the treble so rarely gets harsh and bass isn't really needed for it, and typical listeners don't listen very loud. Meanwhile many boxes will imprint some sort of boom or ping in there or the drivers don't integrates and you get this weird isolated sound. Even the top Wilson Maxx3 despite the huge price and being run by top tube amps sounded all over the place - something that a speaker like the KingSound and Martin Logan or Quad had virtually no issues with.

    It's a fascinating industry because many makers have a variety of approaches and beliefs as to what is the superior presentation.
    Sadly, most audiophiles would never admit that they just prefer the sound of something, it has to be justified as being the more correct approach or truer to the live performance or some such...

    I am partial to designs that are all-rounders, as I have a very wide taste in music... sadly I won't be likely to hear Peter Q's designs anytime soon... I'm fascinated to discover how a SET/HE system would sound with my music... However, I've found that (for me) the best compromise in the price levels I shop at are full range (multi-driver) box speakers... However, the ones I really like use the same material from tweeter to woofer. Revel - uses OCC (some kind of ceramic composite) & Monitor Audio uses C-CAM (aluminum)... so rather than trying to blend the soumd of a metal tweeter with some other materials, Monitor Audio uses metal for all drivers, and Revel uses ceramic throughout... I find that allows the music to sound coherent as there is no change in tone, etc as you move from bass to mids to highs...

    I am especially intrigued to know what AN will sound like, as I know that Peter Q and Kevin Voecks (speaker killer, I believe you call him... so though I've never heard you speak about Revel speakers, I assume you're not fond of them ) have very diferent approaches to speaker design... So I'd love to compare my high powered 'Revel' setup to a low powered AN setup to see whether I love both, hate the AN or change my mind on the Revels....
    Last edited by Ajani; 04-04-2010 at 08:45 PM.

  3. #3
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    Most Live venus suck

    I have been to very few live events that I would want my system to reproduce. I do expect my system to sound true, not live. I expect a wood instrument to sound as such, tell the difference between round and flat wound bass strings, hear a symbol crash to the end and so on.

    I think the term Live is not used properly here or in most cases where this topic comes up.

    As said earlier, your system should reproduce the CD as it was intended, even though in most cases it sounds like crap from over compression and some engineer who puts it all together for Radio play and not High End system playback.

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