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

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Keeping to something somewhat recent, and something I have heard, I would suggest the recently discontinued Revel Concerta F12 speakers.

 

I have heard Vandy 2C variants. Terrific speakers for the price. Have heard and owned various Maggies which also can be excellent speakers for the price. The F12 is better than those. And for $1500 when discontinued last year. Revel has replaced those with the F35, which assuming is an improvement, go for $1500 or the F36 which goes for $2K/pair. Obviously there are more speakers than any one person has heard in or near the $2500/pair price range. These I suggest are seriously good items in my experience. Revel/JBL/Infinity/Harman are onto something good with their design methodology. If this is your market, you should audition these before making a decision.

 

I own Soundlabs, and have experience of several Wilsons and other more expensive speakers. So this isn't a suggestion without experience of some more expensive gear. I might have a rep of thinking most modern gear sounds similar, but that isn't my opinion of speakers. Speakers is where the money should go and are what will limit your listening pleasure and experience. Modern quality speakers is where the real tangible improvements have accrued.

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This is a bit of a tangent from the topic of this thread but I do think it is relevant. I view speakers as being mostly about implementing solid engineering principles backed by research and design, materials and manufacturing expertise. As such, I tend to focus on somewhat larger companies for speakers (those focused on sound quality, not just the bottom line, although I have no problem with any company making money).

 

I often wonder how some of the very small speaker companies can remain competitive with the bigger companies that have access to more resources (R&D facilities, engineering staff, ability to leverage economies of scale)?

 

By "very small" I am thinking of companies smaller than, say, Zu. I am not talking about Vandersteen, Magnepan, etc.. I try to keep an open mind, but to be honest I would be rather skittish about pulling the trigger on a speaker from a very small company. I have this vision of the company owner tinkering around in his garage with parts combinations, designs based upon a dream he had last night, etc., and crossing his fingers he stumbles upon a good combo.

 

Thoughts?

 

P.S. I am aware that much of the speaker selection process comes down to auditioning and personal taste, so I am not looking to re-tread those concepts and no offense intended to those that enjoy speakers from the tiny boutique companies. I am just curious to hear from others on the speaker company size/resources issue.

 

Actually cross over design, speaker and cabinet design along with available quality drivers can be done to a much higher level of refinement than ever before by small companies. Because software modeling and raw driver quality is so good. The software doesn't cost a fortune like it once did.

 

Having said that if they apply resources well, a big company still can do better work than a smaller company. They can push the edge of things more. But DIY speakers that make use of modern tech can let even garage operations make excellent speakers.

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Lol, my experience is that there is an inverse relationship between the size of a company and innovation. The largest US audio company is now owned by the Koreans, so we will see what happens.

 

https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/14/samsung-buys-harmon-auto-audio/

 

Financial engineering beats electrical engineering, just nauseating.

 

I mostly agree with that sentiment. You however picked one of the best possible counter-examples. I too worry what Samsung will do with it. They wanted Harman for the automotive side of things. If they leave the home speaker side alone it won't matter. Of course almost universally when mergers happen they are going to leave everyone alone to continue the good work........and within a year or two at the most that goes out the window. There is the slightly hopeful rumor that Samsung had sights on entering quality home audio, and were doing similar testing to Harman on speakers for home and car. Maybe they'll find it simper/cheaper to just keep the Harman process they now own without monkeying with it too much.

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That figure is JA's in-room response and I suspect it is an artifact of interactions in his room and how he measures over a "listening window" rather than where his ears are. This puts 1st order speakers at a disadvantage in this test. Also, this graph is quite different than his quasi-anechoic measurement!

 

May I kindly suggest it is well worth bothering with a listen rather than rely on JA's dubious in-room measurement? Many folks have suggested Maggies on this thread. Can you imagine how *those* would look using JA's measurements!

 

Well the spectral decay plot looks similar in overall trend.

 

 

The Maggie 1.6 speakers look like this:

 

 

The spectral decay like so. Plenty of hashy upper midrange there. Almost as bad as something like the electrostatic panels I listen to.

 

 

Though more expensive the Revel Ultima Studio 2 shows a better result.

 

 

The decay is pretty clean looking as well.

 

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I think read somewhere that the hash in panel speaker measurements results from the near field mic picking up reflections from the panels...

 

For such speakers I would rather look at a listening spot measurement.

 

 

 

As for Stereophile measurements in general, one should note that the frequency response is not made on-axis but consists of averaging several very wide spaced measurements and produces an artefact in the bass, namely a ~6dB bump at ~100Hz.

 

I believe that the waterfall plot shows the on-axis response.

 

 

This is why I prefer Soundstage's measurements which are made in Canada's NRC anechoic chamber.

 

R

 

Yes, both Stereophile and Soundstage.net offers useful measurements.

 

Unfortunately Soundstage hasn't done either Vandersteen or Magnepans.

 

Here is a listening window (averaged over 15 degrees) for the Revel Ultima Studio speakers. They don't look dissimilar to what JA obtained especially the back of his spectral decay plot.

 

 

The Revel F12 at much lower price I have in my video setup don't look too bad either.

 

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SoundStageNetwork.com | SoundStage.com - SoundStageNetwork.com | SoundStage.com

 

Here is an index to all the speakers soundstage.net has reviewed and measured which links directly to the NRC measurements. Might be useful if they have measured speakers you are considering.

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I listened to a harbeth p3esr today and was impressed.

 

I heard some recently. They do sound nice within their limitations. To me much nicer than most LS3/5a's I have heard. Even though these are something of Harbeth's modern version of those. They do like a bit more power than you might expect for best sound. Also benefited by being away from the walls a good bit more than you might expect.

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This is from the Vandersteen 2CE signature measurements done by Stereophile. That looks more like the Vandy's sound to me.

 

Vandy's if anything always sounded a bit soft vs some other good speakers. Just a bit, and very good in the other things you want from a speaker.

 

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I see revel f206 locally for $2K...i wonder how they compare to the f36 you speak so highly of?

 

They should be better. They cost more initially. A couple steps up the Revel speaker line vs the F12s I have in my video system.

 

Revel Performa3 F206 and M106 Loudspeakers | The Absolute Sound