Troy Crowe is doing a custom build for me which will resemble these.

https://josephcrowe.com/products/speaker-system-no-2015-10-mtm-with-1-4-horn

The question is that with the 3.1 system I want to build for DVD and BD movies, would I likely notice the main speakers playing much when watching movies, if indeed like ELAC, SVS and Definitive Technology say that ~ 70% of the movie soundtrack is intended for the center speaker? If yes, then with just music listening, since I don’t play any multichannel music, the center channel speaker won't even be playing with stereo and mono recordings. 

So, will timbre matching between center and main speakers still be very important when watching movies? If yes, the trouble is that Troy Crowe gives no recommendations for a center speaker.

Therefore, how to find a center speaker that will blend best with that ES450 horn and Fostex T900A bullet tweeter?

- Wooly bass

- Mids, hardly present

- Treble has lost definition

- Image suffers, especially beyond the left and right boundary

Thoughts turned to pre-amplification, was the power amp driven enough, lost control somehow? Maybe with the humidity, the speaker drivers are covered with moisture. Umm, these drivers are plastic, and a fibre, so no liquid cleaning there, just dusting off.

Well.

The mid on the KEF 205/2 has the tweeter as a centre piece, and this was coated with fibres/dust. Brushed this off with a make-up brush, it's super soft and removed all the rubbish. Ports could do with a wring out with microfibre cloth. Done. The rubber was still in good condition, for a speaker 10 years old is good to see.

The drivers are mounted with M4 (mid/Tweeter) and M5 cap screws (two woofers), these are usually metal threads, let's see if they are tight. Oh dear, there was a full two and a half turns to make the screws snug on all drivers. It felt like the screws are pulling on a metal ring or structure, not wood, thank goodness.  Was a bit late at night to wake up the neighbourhood,  left the amp running on Tuner at very low volume, just for the exercise.. Today, the sound emanating from the speakers is:

- Bass tight, McCartney's bass on Mrs. Vandebilt is very tight, wooliness is gone

- Mids/Vocals clear as a bell

- Imaging back, nice front to back, height dependant on recording

- None of that honking any more

It would appear the speakers not tight in the enclosure were moving about creating extra vibrations whatever they wanted to do.  Pure friction held them in place.

If you have speakers even 5 years old, worthwhile the check the mounting screws, very little work to tighten these, the bonus of a great sounding speaker like when it was first delivered and cost $0 for the 'upgrade' !

This is a good photo, the mid has the three M4, and M5 on the woofer.

How is the ambience sound that comes through the open side of this type of headphones? Can i hear clearly my voice (or other instruments like drums, guitar etc), while singing together with the music by them?

Most important; the frequencies are decrease equally on hole spectrum? Or the ambient sound is moody etc?

If someone know how many db is the sound decrease approximatelly..

FYI, the Kiis are an active stand mount speaker employing DSP, and 6 drivers each (tweeter, mid, 2 rear, and 2 side firing woofers), and each driver has its own amp, D/A and A/D converter. The side and rear woofers employ DSP controlled timing so that there is virtually no side and rear firing behind the speaker. The  rear  and side reflections are almost all cancelled out. Everything left is fired forward in a "cardoid" pattern, so room interaction is much reduced.  The whole setup is also time aligned, so sound from each driver arrives at the same time to your ears. And because of DSP control of the woofers to prevent over firing and distortion,  the system can play full range from 20- 25kh, with an extremely small rolloff at the bottom.

The system can also be adjusted for non symmetric or close to the wall and corner placement.

More info and measurements in some of these published reviews:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/kii-audio-three-loudspeaker

http://www.audioxpress.com/files/attachment/2609

https://medium.com/@conscienta/kii-three-review-a-revolutionary-speaker-759c15b014cf

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/kii-audio-three

http://kiiaudio.com/en/component/phocadownload/category/1-revies.html?download=7:studiomagazin-kii-three-review-english

http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/120/kii-three-active-monitors/

https://bobmaccsblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/10/kii-three-speaker-review/

I've had the Kiis in my small listening room for about 2 months now. Am very pleased and don't miss the Devore Nines, as good as they were.

I listen in a small room. I started looking for something different b/c I wanted a system with actual low bass output (without a big rolloff below 30hz), and something with more realistic dynamics than what I had (read, "will play back orchestral music, with it's big dynamics, more like the real thing"). And something that with those attributes, that could still sound good in my small room. I was also looking to integrate and simplify - reduce the number of boxes and cables. Obviously, I also had to think the setup sounded good in general, and didn't just tick off those attributes on paper. 

Larger conventional speakers and subs weren't the solution - too big and overload my room, even with full room treatments. I've used solutions like TACT and Lyngdorf in the past - they pretty much worked, but I didn't want to go in that direction. Plus, it wouldn't really get me the dynamics I was after. 

That led me to audition the Kiis. I did a pretty extensive audition at a dealer (no dealer where I live and no possibility of home audition, unlike in other places), listening to all types of music, including tracks I think are hard to reproduce well. I ordered them on the spot.

So how do the Kiis sound? The basic words to describe them are "clarity, coherence, and balance ". The sound is very clear and detailed without sounding forced. Lows, mids and highs sound balanced, without special emphasis, and are well blended and coherent.

You really can hear every detail: 
Every nuance of what your favorite bass player is playing. Every little tap on the cymbals and tone change of your favorite jazz drummer.

Those lyrics you never could make out because the singer mumbled? Turns out with the Kii you understand them - the singer wasn't mumbling.

Quiet sounds amidst louder ones all around in the mix? Yep, those details you never heard before are audible.

There's also very good soundstage/depth, and placement of instruments in space is clear and rock solid. 

I listen to a fair amount of orchestral music. One of the pieces I used to audition the Kii's was Mahler's 6th symphony - which I'd heard performed live just a few hours before. The Kiis can produce a very loud, clean, full frequency playback of this piece, with startingly real dynamics and a decent soundstage/depth - even in my small space.
I don't think there are many (any) other systems that could. 

The clarity of the Kii's is very different from pretty much any conventional setup. The cardoid bass and precise timing control lessen unwanted reflections and improve the timing of what reaches your ears so that at first it seems something is missing. But then you realize that's what's missing is a kind of distortion/fuzz caused by room reflections and a lack of precise timing between the drivers in conventional setups. It's a kind of fake upper-bass/midrange "warmth" that shouldn't be there. 

I'd guess there's a fair number of listeners who are used to that kind of fuzz and think it is part of a "natural sounding" sound. I respectfully disagree. You've just trained yourself to think that's how playback is "supposed" to sound. The Kiis will tell you when you are listening to a substandard recording. They sound like the real thing, but they won't make your music sound nice if the recording doesn't on it's own. 

And yes, due to their DSP controls, they sound the same placed in the corner as they do more out in the room. 

Okay, lots of praise, but how good are they, really? 

I'd say this system, for a similar cost, is about two orders of magnitude better than my previous conventional one. 

Could it be beat? 
Well of course, it isn't perfect. You could spend 15-20k or more and get speakers with 3K custom made tweeters that would give you a little more high frequency extension and a little more decay. The Kii's are good at that, but I won't say they can't be improved on. 

The bass from the Kiis goes very low, as low as most subs, and is done well.  They successfully playback low organ notes or low bass produced electronically in modern recordings. More than enough bass for almost anyone. But, in the end they are small speakers and won't give you the same physical impact as a 15-18 inch woofer powered by hundreds of watts. If that's a must for you, look elsewhere.

And no, they probably don't have enough output to play loudly at full response in a large room or in one with double height ceilings.  They will play plenty loud in most rooms, but not in all.

So yeah, you could spend three times the cost on speakers, a DAC, subs, amplification, and cables and get something that would be as good or better than the Kiis in some areas.
But you wouldn't get that amazing clarity....Oh, wait, you could add a box like a DEQX and approach it. 

But you get the point. I think for the money they are an amazing value. In a small to medium size room, or in an otherwise challenging listening space - you can't come close to beating them for the money. 
Every system has its tradeoffs. Decide if the ones made by Kii make sense for you.

Below those I have two or three of these subs to use. https://www.rythmikaudio.com/F12.html

All music sources and movies (DVD, BD) are pc-based, with JRiver being my primary Windows player. Whether I use a stereo or DAC to first measure and correct the room acoustically as best I can-or then attempt further correction via a MCH DAC (e.g. https://www.merging.com/products/interfaces/hapi )-I was assured by Hapi users that I can control master volume and mute via a wireless Windows keyboard.

Having a lightweight keyboard on my lap for volume/mute is one thing, but it's those split second SPL blasts from movies, that all too often crop up in movies that can hit your ears, which literally terrifies me-as it should anyone who values their hearing (??!!). So, what's the best solution to provide instantaneous protection against dangerous SPLs while preserving audio quality (resolution)?

Some kind of limiter plug-in?? What would be best? But how fast and precise can it limit SPLs? And what sonic penalties might I pay for using it?

Without going into boring detail, I have replaced the above with a pair of KEF X300A's, and nothing else. No cable upgrades, nothing.

The X300A's do not sound any worse, at $900, than the aforementioned $2250 worth of stuff. In fact, if anything, they sound better.

Like the Q speakers, they fall a little flat on their faces with certain genres of music and certain compositions, but when they shine, in acoustic, classical, jazz, certain metal, and certain rock and indy tracks, they shine bright. Very bright.

These are the best value for money in a speaker that I have come across, especially considering that you're getting a full digital audio solution for your $900 (DAC/AMP/speaker). I would whole-heartedly recommend them to anybody looking for a good all in one solution.

Initially I used them in a small room on a desk on some isolation pads and they sounded "ok" but not mind blowing. Since moving them into a nice big 20X30 foot room they sound absolutely spectacular. I really like these speakers a lot.

Cheers

I am looking for a pair of headphones for around 200 eu. I will mostly be listening to classical music at home in a quiet environment. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Could someone explain the difference between these two pairs of headphones? They seem to be the same but there is a 40 GBP price difference. 

https://amzn.eu/d/iwQjkol

https://amzn.eu/d/gCVxH3V

Kind regards!

As already mentioned elsewhere I visited a very interesting project last month in Germany - the Pure Acourate Sound Project (PASP), which combines efforts fom the following actors in the audiophile universe.

- AudioVero - Acourate
- Klippel
- Purifi
- Viawave
- Joachim Gerhard (Audio Physics / Suesskind)
- Markus Grelka / Rose Handwerk
- Ralf Höllmann / Digital Loudspeaker
- GIK Acoustics

The full system will be presented at the MHE 2024, in Hall 3, Box K05, with the team happy to make you smile.
The designer, Dr. Brüggemann from Audiovero/Acourate,  has a speaker slot about his project involvement at the MHE XPERT stage in the press center at Friday, 10^th of May, at 12h sharp (in German), he follows directly after the presentation by Klippel’s Ellis Blackford Strout at 11h sharp (in English).

I have written an article about experiencing the PASP system. Which is divided into two entries at the AS blog section

Part 2 with commented listening of some  playlist tracks, some reflections, many documents and two other xperiences from that trip (yes - with Porsche) will follow tomorrow ;-)

very soon I'll bring a system of mine to my oldest friend's 60s birthday.
It contains 2 Subwoofer XTZ 10.17 (30-160hz) 700w, my two active Airpulse A80, the SMSL D6 DAC with dual outputs (both hot) on RCA and 6.5 TRS for balanced.
As I want to use the TRS to the subs, which have a high pass and onboard PEQ, my idea was to send the analog signal of the D6 RCA outputs to my WIIM pro, using parametriq eq setting for the output with a low (shelf) pass in order to deprive the small active bookshelfs from their activity below 100, 120 or 150 hz. Not sure which might be best ?
I would feed the analog signal into the analog input of the A80s. Definitely loosing some signal quality, but gaining the use of parametric eq for that signal to run the 4.5" woofers in more relaxed way. That's my primary consideration.
The environment is a party with 30-50 guests, thus I may think quality loss to 85-90db SNR may not be too critical..

Alternatively, I could send the high quality signal from the D6 to the A80 without low pass and push the 2nd signal through the WIIM, however I noticed a difference in VRMS:
WIIM Input 1 VRMS, D6 balanced out 4 VRMS - or leave the WIIM PEQ completely out of the game.

Hey community: Happy to receive your considerations, ideas, opinions, advise, shoulder patting ;-)
Tom

A couple of years ago I added one Goldenear Forcefield 3 subwoofer and felt it worked well with the Harbeths. Then this week I got a good deal on a second Forcefield 3 sub and added it to my system.

To my surprise, this addition isn't really about more bass but it seems to have supercharged the soundstage coming out of the two Harbeths. People for years have said, "Get two subs, not just one." and now I know why. Stereo subwoofers do more to enhance your primary speakers then anything else I've found to improve your overall sound quality in your room.

i bought a nice dap and a Hifiman headphone and they advised this headphone cable the HE1000V2. But it has a dent where the 4.4 connector is. A friend says this is no probleem but for me it looks strange should i return this cable or is it normal for this kind of cables?

I am aware that my criteria are different, but its a tradeoff that aims to please my wife and myself.

1) The speakers have to blend or add to the room so big black boxes are out no matter how good they sound, my guess is white is the only viable option

2) The room can't look cluttered, so everything needs to be placed based on the space not based on the best sound

3) The budget all in has to be 60K USD or less

4) Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect , FLAC's and sometimes Qobuz are the only source we use.

5) I love Martin Logans' and other plannar systems but they don't work in my case as I need a really wide sweet spot (we often listen to the main stereo in the dining room or kitchen (I have tried) 

Sadly I have no opportunity to listen to most of these near where I live so, a lot of it's based on reviews and extrapolation (I will detail as I go).  I just upgraded to a pair of REL S/812's which are connected wirelessly and I really like NAD so unless there is a really good reason I will drive it with a M66 connected to dual M23's.  The speaker cables will likely be Kimber Cable 12TC if it's visible (unless there is a really good reason not to us it.

In terms of speakers I am currently using B&W 805 D4's connected to a M33 and a pair of REL T7/x's I enjoy the clarity and precision but they lack presence in the midrange, I have listened to the 801, 802 and 803's. Honestly the 803's made the best impression (if I didn't have they REL's I would have said the 801 but combined with the REL's I feel the 803 is lighter and more responsive without loosing anything range wise).  I have Usher S-500's in the kitchen connected to a pair of Bluesound Powernodes and I have to admit they are simply amazing speakers for their price/size.

My office setup is a pair of Proac 2.8, connected to a Classe CDP-151 that is fed by a Wyred4Sound Dac2, the source is a bluesound node.

I am considering the following, and could use thoughts from people that have experience with them

• Wilson Audio Yvette  or SabrinaX ,  My wife is not keen on the shape/look and I am really concerned about the wall proximity as they are rear ported 
• Dali Epicon 8

• Paradigm Persona 9H
• Revel Salon 2 but likely the F328Be in white
• Estelon AURA. or YB Mk II or XB Mk II. I have never heard these but my wife likes the shape and the Aura and YB fit in the space
• Bowers & Wilkins 802 D4 or 803 D4 
• USHER Dancer or ML's (I know not white but as I said the S-500's amaze me so I am leaving these on the list even if they are going to be a tough sell)

.

An all-in-one solution, with XLR through to coax and optical inputs, and remote with just enough to do what's needed ... okay, what has to be done? It was already noted that having a whole lot of entertainment boxes plugged into the same extension box was not the best for SQ, so, tweak 1, 😉.

First CD to make it obvious where work was needed was that which was tried first thing, from cold start, the next morning,

Very live, driving sound; modern recording -  this was a "bit much" ... no problems with the energy and punch, but subjectively too much of the "in the face" quality; a good test, from now on, to see how I progress in 'refining' the setup.

Bocaue I the placement might only be for 2-3 months I really don't want to get longer speaker cables at this time, mechanically I know it's easy to extend my Kimber Cable 8TC (amazon etc. sell a ton of hmmm options) but my question is there anyone that makes a high end option female to male banana plug speaker wire? or I could use a female to female coupler if there was a high-quality version out there?

Any thoughts or advice (or even better point me in the right direction)

I'm looking to buy a pair of speakers in the range of 2-4k $, but unfortunately where I live there's very few choices.

So I'm looking for options to buy and ship online, I currently live in Saudi Arabia.

So far the options I found:

Buchardt

Philharmonic

And a few others who ship internationally but only in Europe, and some others who deliver, but don't really have quality options.

Any help is appreciated.

Cheers.

Kaboz

Or, if there is a better option than all three, I'm all ears...

I find myself not listening to music as much as I'd like due to the 'convenience' factor. I would like the tube integrated to be on all the time, available for music play back  - but I know that's not recommended due to the high heat generation and adversely impacting the tube lifespan. The amp does not have an idle and a wake up state. I have to 'plan' my listening sessions by warm up time and being careful not to shut down in between breaks and my next listening or timing it by shutting it down when long enough. 

Enter the 'convenient' KEF LS50 Wireless II speakers. Rave online audiophile reviews. Got a pair from my dealer for 45 days. Ran the speaker for 120 hours break in period and configured the DSP along with Roon MUSE setting for optimal room configuration. The KEF LS50Wii are very convenient. When not in use for 20 mins they go in standby mode to be woken by the next stream of music playback. They are Roon certified, and can play every sort of file format and stream including chromecast. But they just dont sound as good as my Croft and Harbeth set up. 

Close, but not the same. I think it can benefit from a better internal DAC. The sound lacks details, music separation, and sweetness compared to the Harbeth's. I have done a lot of A/B by having both on equal height speaker stands and connected to Roon - its a night and day difference. I am trying really hard to have the KEF play at par with the Harbeth set up so I can simplify my audio system and also be able to play music on demand with the KEF being on all the time in stand by mode. If I had not listened to my Croft and Harbeth set up I would have bought the KEF in a heartbeat. But I feel I will be sacrificing quality listening session over quantity. 

Any recommendations on configuring the KEF LS50Wii or maybe a better alternative set of speakers out there that would be better than my current set up? I like the convenience of active speakers but....

For those interested, first I'm posting an introduction to Design of Experiments here:
_________________

When I started to look at how to effectively integrate my REL R-305 subwoofer  with a pair of "mains" speakers using a statistical approach called Design of Experiments to optimize integration of subwoofers for a given room with a set of "mains" speakers.

To start with here is an introduction to Design of Experiments. 

Description
Design of experiments (DOE) is a powerful tool that can be used in a variety of experimental situations. DOE allows for multiple input factors to be manipulated determining their effect on a desired output (response). By manipulating multiple inputs at the same time, DOE can identify important interactions that may be missed when experimenting with one factor at a time. All possible combinations can be investigated (full factorial) or only a portion of the possible combinations (fractional factorial). Fractional factorials will not be discussed here.

When to Use DOE
Use DOE when more than one input factor is suspected of influencing an output. For example, it may be desirable to understand the effect of temperature and pressure on the strength of a glue bond.

DOE can also be used to confirm suspected input/output relationships and to develop a predictive equation suitable for performing what-if analysis. 

DOE Procedure
Acquire a full understanding of the inputs and outputs being investigated. A process flow diagram or process map can be helpful. Utilize subject matter experts as necessary.

Determine the appropriate measure for the output. A variable measure is preferable. Attribute measures (pass/fail) should be avoided. Ensure the measurement system is stable and repeatable.

Create a design matrix for the factors being investigated. The design matrix will show all possible combinations of high and low levels for each input factor. These high and low levels can be generically coded as +1 and -1. For example, a 2 factor experiment will require 4 experimental runs:

Note: The required number of experimental runs can be calculated using the formula 2n where n is the number of factors.

For each input, determine the extreme but realistic high and low levels you wish to investigate. In some cases the extreme levels may be beyond what is currently in use. The extreme levels selected should be realistic, not absurd. For example: 

Enter the factors and levels for the experiment into the design matrix. Perform each experiment and record the results. For example:

Calculate the effect of a factor by averaging the data collected at the low level and subtracting it from the average of the data collected at the high level. For example:

Effect of Temperature on strength:  
(51 + 57)/2 - (21 + 42)/2 = 22.5 lbs 

Effect of Pressure on strength:
(42 + 57)/2 - (21 + 51)/2 = 13.5 lbs

The interaction between two factors can be calculated in the same fashion. First, the design matrix must be amended to show the high and low levels of the interaction. The levels are calculated by multiplying the coded levels for the input factors acting in the interaction. For example: 

Calculate the effect of the interaction as before.

Effect of the interaction on strength:
(21 + 57)/2 - (42 + 51)/2 = -7.5 lbs

The experimental data can be plotted in a 3D Bar Chart. 

This simple-minded example above shows that there is an interaction between temperature and pressure in the strength of the glue bond. This is one feature of DOEs that is particularly useful when looking at the effect of a number of factors and their effect on the critical functional response. 

Now that that is out of the way as intro, let's look at the specific experiment I had in mind in the next post.

The experiment I was trying to reproduce was the one based on the well-known "Harman curve" showing that listeners perceived a room as having flat room reponse when the measured frequency actually looked more like this. This is because our hearing is not linear at lower frequencies. 

Now, one could debate whether the Harman curve is exactly the right curve on which to base this model, but it was a well-characterized "orthogonal reference" as we say in science, and as such, it was the one I decided to use for this experiment. Please keep in mind this was just an experiment I did [i]for fun[/i] while recovering from a back opera tion. What can I say...this is how scientists like myself are "wired"... :lol:

Given this, I set out to to perform a "DOE" to see if I could determine the optimal settings of speakers, REL sub settings and other factors, like grilles on or off, speaker toe-in, port plugs, etc. that would optimize the in-room response.

With that in mind, I set out to see what I could do with my set-up to obtain, as close as possible, the Harman response curve via DOE. 

System used at the time was: Conrad-Johnson Premier 17LS Preamp, Conrad-Johnson LP70S, Dynaudio Contour S3.4 speakers, REL R-305, M-Audio MobilePre USB mike preamp, Dayton NIST-traceable calibrated measurement microphone with calibration file, and Room EQ Wizard Software. The Room EQ Wizard software generates and simultaneously measures the frequency sweep from 10 Hz to 20,000 Hz. 

The desired responses were to maximize 20 and 50 Hz repsonse in dB, and minimize the 150 and 500 Hz responses. These 150 and 500 Hz responses were nodes that I wanted to minimize, if possible. 

An example trace as my starting point for reference is shown. The purple trace is where I started with the sub in, the brown trace with the sub out, before optimizing things using the DOE approach. The following is the real-time, IN-ROOM measured response for the right speaker:

The goal here was to maximize the 20-50Hz node to range, while smothing the 70, and minimizing the 105, 155 and 500 Hz node peaks, so as to emulate the JBL graph. 

The factors I used for the DOE were sub gain (as clicks up from zero), sub crossover, likewise clicks up from zero, plug or no plug in the speaker reflex port. So, four responses being measured as the result of 3 factors at two different levels (low, high as in the examples above shown). 

Setting up a full-factorial DOE in JMP (a stastical package), here are the experimental matrix I ran per JMP's output for the experimental design and the ACTUAL measurements for each frequency (as measured in dB by room Eq Wizard).

The next post will be the analysis of the data. 

I am thinking of selling my B&W CDM1 bookshelf speakers and purchasing a pair of Wharfedale Lintons. My current B&Ws are 20 years old. Any opinions on this “upgrade”.

I appreciate any feedback and look forward to hearing your take.

Many thanks!