Hi All,
It's been a while. For the last year or so I've been enjoying my first "real" system:
Nait 5i-2 / Rega DAC / Rega RS1s / BK XLS-200 sub
Room is
It's brought me a good deal of listening pleasure but in all honesty I have never fully warmed to the Rega RS1 speakers, although they seem good value for money & work okay mounted on the wall, which was important at the time. I find there's a bit of glare and upper-mid/treble roughness and a lack of substance or solidity to the sound. A bit bright & boxy and seem to struggle a bit with anything but simple acoustic music. Adding in the subwoofer did help quite a bit, although I have to use it discretely since I'm a flat-dweller.
Anyway, now I have re-arrange things and have space to accommodate some compact floor-standers either side of the TV unit - although I understand this might not be an ideal placement/separation:
Room is my main open-plan living space - 5m x 5m. Old building with high ceilings. Wood floors & not much in the way of soft furnishings. Picture below.
That space could accommodate anything up to around 850mm height x 300mm width x 500mm depth, although I'm sure some breathing space would be good and I don't want to overpower the room. But the little Rega RS1s are definitely getting a bit lost.
Budget is around or under £1000 - I am thinking that the used market is the way to go and I have read around on these and other forums and here are some ideas:
- Some form of PMC - GB1i / FB1i
- Neat - Motive, SX 2 (SX1 is a bit too tall)
- Kudos X2
- Spendor - A5, A5r, S6e...etc
- Some kind of Naim speaker - SBL ?
Use of the sub can be optional. I definitely want a slight shift to a sound that is less fatiguing, with more solidity and a little more inner warmth, but nothing that will slip into sloppiness or become boomy. I'm weary of anything that might be described as having a bright edge or be too dry.
Music tastes - everything from classical, folk, indie to pop, rock, electronica. I don't listen at loud-levels at all.
Also planning a move to a turntable at some point.
Build quality is important to me too.
Can anyone offer any advice on these speakers for my goals and my room? Or any others I should be looking out for?
Thanks for reading. Please help me to overcome my analysis paralysis & get back to the music.
James
Posted on: 21 April 2016 by Jeb-Jeb
Okay cool thanks guys- I was definitely going to demo the PMCs as they are a staple at most of the local dealers. From reading about them I was worried the bass may be very lean but it sounds like in my room I may have the opposite problem.
I could probably place them anywhere from right up against the wall to about 30cm away max and perhaps bring them in further for listening if it wasn't a PITA.
The system is definitely going to be a work in progress and I may not live here long-term. I get the feeling nothing is going to be ideal here so probably just a case of making the best of it that I can. Im ready to use subs and I'm quite keen on using the DSP correction suggested by Huge.
as I mentioned, probably will also be moving to an analogue front-end next. FWIW I did demo the Hugo (I'm coming from a Headphones background) and preferred the Rega DAC by some margin, though never tried the other Chord offerings.
btw- what does a Mullet mean, sonically - I'm guessing it's not good.
Are ATCs (e.g SCM 11, 19) something to consider?
Posted on: 21 April 2016 by Huge
Your problem with bass won't be overall volume, but the quality (tunefulness) of the bass. All your opposing walls produces a resonant tuned cavity at 34Hz in both directions, so you'll get a massive bass peak at that frequency. If you use speakers with a reasonable bass extension (particularly your sub) and place them near the walls, then almost any bass note 25-50Hz will excite the resonance so much that you'll hear the 34Hz and not the actual note being played.
The worst excitation of the room mode occurs at the corners, then beside a wall, and the minimum is when the speaker is in the middle of the room. This is why you have to move the sub to its current (somewhat inconvenient) location. This is also what a DSP can reduce, so you can put the sub in a more convenient place.
You'll also need to be careful about mounting a turntable as these can also be affected by acoustic resonances.
Posted on: 21 April 2016 by Huge
Hi Jeb-Jeb,
More expensive amplifies can deliver very high transient currents very quickly, but this level of engineering costs. Unfortunately not everyone can afford these beasts!
Many of the more expensive speaker designs (PMC Twenty series included) are intended to be used with these much more expensive amplifiers, so their designers don't make any allowance for the limitations of less expensive amplifiers. It's not that the 5i is weak (it isn't, it's actually very capable for it's price point), it's just that it doesn't cost £3000+! so don't be disheartened.
Also, it looks as though you're in a flat. In that case it's worth checking out how a speaker performs at low (i.e. reasonably neighbour friendly) volumes, some speakers like the PMC Twenty.21 loose rather more detail at low level than some others will do.
