What Are the Best Sounding Speakers UNDER $2,500 that You've Ever Heard.?

[Jud]

Vandersteen 2 series, and second place is not close. They were well below $2500 at the various times I've heard (and owned) them, though they have recently edged up to $2560. Guessing you could pretty easily find a retailer who would discount them to below $2500.

[Jud]

I'll see your Vandies and raise you a set of Maggies...

 

I've read lots of good things about them, but the only one I've actually heard is the Tympani.

[Jud]

I am not saying that they will not "sound great" for many people (surely not me) but I have learnt from experience how to correlate some measurements with the actual sound, by measuring the speakers I have own, some DIY experiments I did and looking at measurements of speakers I have listened to.The frequency response plot, even a weird one consisting of averaging several very wide averagely spaced measurements such as this one, tells us about the tonal balance of the speakers, the accuracy with which it reproduces "colours".

 

In this case the upper midrange and lower treble are shelved some 5dB above the remaining spectrum denoting poor midrange driver integration.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]31180[/ATTACH]

R

 

 

Hi Ricardo -

 

Two speculations from me of possible interest regarding the Vandersteen measurements:

 

- The extremely comprehensive setup guides in the Vandersteen speaker manuals (well worth reading for setting up *most* speakers, not just Vandys) strongly suggest using very little if any toe-in. I don't know whether JA's measurements were done on-axis, or if off-axis by how much; that's a possible explanation for a difference between measurement and listening experience.

 

- Regarding integration of the midrange, Vandersteen's avowed goal was to maintain correct phase and time response, so first-order crossovers are used. (See, e.g., SoundStage! Interviews Richard Vandersteen of Vandersteen Audio Part One (08/1998).) Use of a first-order crossover in order to serve Vandersteen's design priorities (which I feel as an owner pay off handsomely in terms of imaging and localization of instruments and vocals) may be in part responsible for that aspect of the response measurement.

[Jud]

Hi Jud,

Many designers, such as Siegfried Linkwitz, dismiss the audibility of phase and time alignment:

 

Sound reproduction is about creating an auditory illusion.

When the recorded sound is of real instruments or voices there is a familiar, live reference in our auditory memory.

The illusion of hearing a realistic reproduction is destroyed by distortion that is added anywhere in the signal chain from microphone to loudspeaker, but the speaker is by far the biggest culprit.

Every designer focuses on the on-axis frequency response as if it were the all determining distortion parameter.

Sometimes great attention is paid to the phase response in an attempt to preserve waveform fidelity, which at best can only be achieved for a single listening point in space.

Ignored usually, though of much greater importance, is resonance in drivers and cabinets and the slow release of stored energy that goes with it.

Furthermore, the uniformity and flatness of the off-axis frequency response which we hear via room reverberation and reflections is rarely a design goal.

You can check the naturalness of the timbre by listening from another room.

Does it sound like a loudspeaker is playing?

The imbalance in the speaker's power response between low and high frequencies destroys the illusion

 

(...)

 

Now, a first-order crossover can be made phase-perfect at one point in space, but I feel quite strongly that you cannot just look at a speaker's performance at one single point in space.

The off-axis response is also very important to a speaker's overall performance in a real room, because the radiation in these other directions will add, through reflected and reverberant interactions, to what you hear.

Typically, we don't listen to speakers outdoors or in anechoic chambers.

There's no way around it, speakers have to be listened to.

And ultimately most people will end up buying the ones that sound better to them.

 

RSave

Save

 

 

Hi Ricardo -

 

 

The Vandersteen speakers I've owned definitely had/have a defined "sweet spot," which is fortunately not a problem for me, since I've set up the speakers and room so I sit in it.

 

 

Have you heard any of the Vandersteens? For some reason I was under the impression you had.

[Jud]

OTOH, I've heard and played more than a few "classical" pieces that might have benefited from a wee bit o' distortion.

 

[imagines listening to the introductory notes of Beethoven's Fifth as played on Keith Richards' fuzz tone guitar from "Satisfaction." ]

[Jud]

More Vandersteen 2 measurements

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This is the in-room response of the Vandersteen 2C from a 1986 review. That's very near ideal even for a $$$ speaker. This is also JA's room . . . in Santa Fe rather than NY. But, it's always possible that RV made better speakers 30 years ago!

 

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This one is from the 2Ce review in 2000 and comes from RV as he took exception to how JA measured his product. This is missing the nearfield from the woofer but see esldude's post above.

 

If you're shopping at this price point (or even up to $5K) and have space for a largish floorstander (and can live with it's monolith appearance), the Vandy 2 Sig IIs deserve an audition. I have no regrets and am still happy 8 years in. I'd like to upgrade to the Treos but might simply buy current production Sig IIs - RV has made several changes since they were introduced including replacing the midrange with the one he used to put in the Model 5.

 

I loved a pair of Quattros I heard at RMAF, and I own 3A sigs (as *my* sig says ). If the Treos are anything like the Quattros, I'd certainly give them some thought if I were in your situation. Of course we're talking about a cost difference between the 2Ce Sig II and the Treo (without carbon tweeter) of over $4000! (And we're getting further off topic, apologies to the OP....)

[Jud]

If you can't shed your "I'm the only one who knows what's right" schtick and accept that someone somewhere might actually have a different but equally valid opinion, there's no point to attempted communication with you. No one is intentionally buying speakers he or she thinks are inaccurate - you just don't agree with them that their choices achieve the goal.

 

What they hear as accurate you hear as inaccurate. That's fine - if we all heard things the same way, we'd all have the same systems or cost-controlled variants thereof. Your self-described understanding of "what people want" is in reality your self-generated interpretation of what they have.

 

How about simply telling us what you think are the best sounding speakers you've ever heard for under $2500? If you want to say why, and the answer is because you think they're the most accurate reproducers you've ever heard, that's wonderful. Your opinion would make me go out and find a pair to hear. That's how I found & bought many speakers: Rectilinear 3s in 1973, LS3/5as in 1976, IRSs in 1983, etc up to and including the Focals and JBLs I use now. They all shared a quality I perceive as accuracy - and after paying decades of dues to AFM local 77, I kinda think I might have some idea of what live music sounds like. You may disagree, and I'm fine with that.

 

So help me/us out here. Recognizing that you prize what you perceive as accuracy over any & all other factors, what are the best sounding speakers you've heard under $2500? I'm sure my wife thinks we need another pair by now anyway.........

 

For the sake of accuracy, you should insert a picture of your wife rolling her eyes.

 

 

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[Jud]

I'll happily forgo some accuracy (if that's actually what my system is doing) for an engaging, musical, forgiving presentation.

 

If accuracy means sub-par recordings are unlistenable that leaves little left to listen to in my book, as IHMO 90+% of everything I've ever heard in terms of recording/mastering barely passes as good.

 

Each to their own, but it must be sad having to select only great recordings to listen to, as that probably sacrifices enjoying a great many of the brilliant compositions and performances ever captured.

 

Having said that this is a speaker thread and I would prefer the speaker to be as accurate as possible and have any euphony occur earlier in the chain.

 

... that's why I LOVE ATC speakers.

 

Speakers are far from perfect, and some types of accuracy are inimical to others (speed and low frequency response; multiple drivers and imaging). So we pick the types of accuracy we're most sensitive to.

 

That said, I think many of us have been taught by reviews, friends, or experience to listen for "high fidelity" or the sonically extraordinary rather than plain old accuracy.

 

 

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[Jud]

I have those Pioneers as my desktop speakers. Paid $49 for the pair on sale at Best Buy!

 

And they are just as good as you and the reviewer say.

 

 

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[Jud]

Richard: I tend to think of sound in terms of pitch, loudness, and timbre. Your definition of timbre is more all encompassing to the point where I would refer to what you call timbre as just overall signal quality. "Timbre," to my mind, are the sound characteristics that allow us to distinguish between sounds which otherwise have the same pitch and loudness. I believe Timbre is mainly determined by harmonic content and dynamic characteristics of the sound such as vibrato and the attack-decay envelope of the sound.

Because timbre is defined to a great extent by what it *isn't* (everything other than pitch and loudness that makes an audible difference), whether or not to include phase has been a subject of a fair amount of disagreement. Those who feel the ear is relatively insensitive to phase tend to exclude it; those who feel the effects of phase have been underestimated tend to include it. See for example Definitions of Timbre (by G. Sandel).

 

Because phase effects tend to make a considerable difference in my system and with the music I listen to, I personally feel it's a good idea to include it, but of course that feeling has no definitional force.