Bigger speakers

Budget?

£1200 roughly :-)

Fizzyhair posted:

£1200 roughly :-)

That's what I said and came home with Spendor A7s ????

Fyne Audio F501 have received some great reviews and they're bang on your budget.

Could be worth a listen.

Why do you want physically bigger speakers?  Is the look of the speakers so important?

Hi,

Perhaps you could try some -

B&W 683 S2 speakers.

Stephen Tate posted:

Hi,

Perhaps you could try some -

B&W 683 S2 speakers.

A bit shouty are they?

DBL

that is full size

yeti42 posted:

Stephen Tate posted:

Hi,

Perhaps you could try some -

B&W 683 S2 speakers.

A bit shouty are they?

Ok, probably a useless comment. Could do with more information from the OP, like room size and at what sort of loudness they prefer to listen at and so on...with a 5i series system the Neat Motives will take some beating.

Ex dem SX1s !!

PMC Twenty 23s are going for about that sort of money second hand. Until last year I had a pair of them on the end of exactly what you have, a Nait 5i & CD5i, and the whole lot sounded absolutely superb together.

Huge posted:

Why do you want physically bigger speakers?  Is the look of the speakers so important?

Its a big old room and the deeper bass of a smaller speaker gets a little lost. Im used to my Heybrook HeyStaks and they have amazing bass extension! 

Alas though they are dying and parts have become impossible to find :-(

Hi,

Another candidate that may well be worth trying is a pair of Q Acoustic 3050i floorstanders, their impedance seems a little on the severe side but the Nait 5i should deal with them easily, very similar electrically to Naim's own Ariva speakers they would appear, now there's a thought...

I have Totem Hawks on a UC2/NAP100 and that's nice, though the Hawks will take more amplification. Maybe over your budget, but you could look at the Arro, which is a nice little floor-stander. 

Guinnless posted:

Fizzyhair posted:

£1200 roughly :-)

That's what I said and came home with Spendor A7s ????

How do you find them? Have the A4’s and was considering an upgrade for a bit more scale 

I compared the A5R to the A7s and the A7s were miles better.  Much better bass register for deep male voice like Rag'n'bone man etc.

I have them 2m apart with a touch of toe in and the soundstage is very solid.  Just as good on female vocal like Patricia Barber.

Regarding parts being impossible to find for the Heystacks, if  the manufacturer can’t help, have you tried contacting Falcon Acoustics? 

But if you do decide it is time to buy, with that budget I would only look at secondhand, even though that can make the process a bit more challenging.

Update...

Falcon Acoustics didnt have what i needed but i managed to find the parts at willis hifi. Heybrooks are back and sounding great. Thanks!

However im still looking to upgrade and ive tried a few of the pairs you've recommended.

I did try the big B&W floorstanders and they are amazing. Huge soundstage and great sound. But not quite right for the 5i. Just felt like it was a bit too much of... well everything. They are bleeding huge. And they need so much space to sound right youd have to live in a football stadium to feel the benefit. Haha

The A7s were so good i nearly bought on the spot. But i heard some used Triangle  Ez floorstanders that stopped me. Seriously great match for the 5i indeed.  Just didnt much like the fit and finish of the pair instore. Bit rough round the edges.

But that said i keep returning to the darn motive SX2. They are so good with the system im actually thinking of moving my system to another room haha. They just sortof work with the naim sound. 

The guy instore told me id probable prefer the motive 2 to the SX2 as its a bigger and more gutsy speaker. Any truth in that?

Fizzyhair posted:

The guy instore told me id probable prefer the motive 2 to the SX2 as its a bigger and more gutsy speaker. Any truth in that?

Hi Fizzyhair,

I'm a little confused here with your question. Do you mean the Motive SX1? or the discontinued Motive 2? compared with SX2...I'm told by various reliable sources that the SX2 is the sweet spot of the current Motive range. I too run a pair of Motive SX2's on a 5si system and could not be any happier with this marriage. I find this system just oozes music, if you get my drift..?

To add further with my opinions:

Sure, one can add a bigger and gutsier as well as a easier to drive speaker but I think this is rather missing the point with the SX2, in terms of enjoyment and musicality. It obviously all depends on what is required here. If you are listening in a rather large room at high volume levels then I can see that the SX2 may not be enough and because you like the SX's signature sound already then the SX1 or others will be more fitting and able to deal with that larger room. Also bare in mind that a much more powerful system will also be required to fill a large room, not just bigger speakers. If however you intend to keep your current system, no matter what, then the SX2 will be hard to beat (as you're finding out) especially in a small to medium sized room, again based on what it is that floats your boat. I used to run Credo speakers with my current system, which are much bigger, easier to drive, more revealing and had much more slam to them but I would choose the SX2's all day long over them, with my current system. They just work in my small/medium sized room and they have that elusive 'can't stop grinning' factor that is really hard to find these days, really hard.

Anyway, I would not do anything too hasty just yet, maybe go and listen to even more speakers before coming to your own conclusions, is so easy to balls everything up that's all and I just thought I would chime in to say that what you already have will be hard to beat. Unless you decide to up the ante with the electronics that is.

I would also recommend using Naim's own NAC A5 speaker cables with their right angled plugs expertly made up by some soldering whizz kid and to use what ever matching 'metal' plated plugs at the speaker end, if you have not done so already.

Happy Listening.

Personally I would recommend Linn K20 cable. It is pretty much the same (slight difference) to NACA5 especially when you consider the price (£5 per m instead of £34 per m).

Adam Meredith posted:

Depends what you mean by "slight".

I mean that I doubt the difference between the NACA4 (Linn K20) and NACA5 is proportionate to the price difference between the two.

Iliria, your point is clear and valid - I use the K20 as well. But in the grand scheme of things Nac A5 is considered a cheap upgrade (I doubt to call it an upgrade since I lean towards calling it a necessity) by me. For - say - GBP 300 one gets an improvement similar to say a hicap on the preamp.

I use my K20 to test positioning the loudspeakers on various spots in my living room - I need about 10 meters for it. Using these cables, I don't need to move the amps, I just put the loudspeakers in various positions and listen. Last weekend, I replaced the cables by A5, and indeed it was better. Especially bass control. Not the first time I noticed this.

ARDBEG10Y it may indeed be the case in terms of sound improvement. And I agree that if one spends £10k on speakers then £300 on cable is quite proportionate. However, I have become quite cynical when it comes to claims about speaker cables, or any other cables, due to a number of factors. One reason is that some people notice a difference and others dont. Another reason is that once one enters the "upgrade path" it is a "no coming back" road. I have read posts here about people considering (or buying) to spend thousands on speaker feet or even considering doing work on the house's structure in the hope of getting some improvement in sound. I also believe that our brains are wired in a way that they think that the more money you spend the better the results will be. Now, I have seen that the Witch Hat Phantom cable makers claim that their cable is made by ex Naim engineers and the latter think it is that good that they refuse to go back to their NACA5

With the hope of not turning the OP's thread into a cable thread:

I would say that it is universally accepted by most folk here (if not ALL) that NAC A5 is better than NAC A4. I cannot comment on NAC A4 myself as it's a bit before my Naim journey but I did compere NAC A5 with many others back in the Olive days and 'to my ears' at least, NAC A5 easily won out. Incidentally, I remember quite a few here raving on about their latest NAC A5 trouncing cables not long ago (Tellurium?) and then as timed passed away, only to revert back to good old faithful NAC A5 as the music began to play again. I would not become to concerned with the latest cable fad. Personally (if made up correctly) I find that NAC A5 on a Naim amp is extremely hard to fault in it's ability to pass on the music.