The speaker nominations for the $2,500 two-channel speaker evaluation event has been closed and the voting now begins. Thanks to all who nominated speakers... we certainly have a lot to choose from. Remember, that even if your favorite speakers do not get selected this round, they could be selected for a later round. We will likely take some of the higher voted speakers for the next round-up, so please vote regardless of whether you believe they will be included in this round or not.
We have NOT contacted all of these speaker manufacturers to see if they will participate, although we have contacted a few. If a speaker is voted in the top 4 and the manufacturer does not want to participate, we will go to the next highest vote getter. In case of a tie, Scoobie will be the tie breaking vote.
Votes are public and viewable.
This IS NOT the poll to select which speakers you think will be chosen by the panelists as their favorites. This poll is for deciding which speakers will be included in the evaluation event.
As previously stated, we are giving our sponsors first priority, so the SVS Ultras and the EP CS2P's are already selected for the evaluation event and both have already agreed to participate.
Could we swap the dynaudio from the D series to the excite 32s. They msrp for $2800.
I went to my local audio store and got to hear the B&W CM10s with the Golden Ears and the Dynaudio Excite 36s. Magnepans and lastly the Paradign 60s. Dynaudio really stood out to me as the clear favorite with more depth to Adele's voice on the first track of her album 19.
CM10s win for looks and came a close second. Surprisingly to me, the Golden Ears were a fuller sound but lacked the clarity they sounded muddy to me on higher frequencies as when Adele hit her high notes.
The Magnepans are a big speaker and they give you big sound, but to me they are best for dedicated 2 channel listening rooms
Paradigms were alright but to me lacked the detail and clarity of the Dynaudios or the B&Ws
I would love to hear how the excites compare as oppose to the DM series.
The X32 does not come in Satin Black, so that is probably why it was excluded for this round. The new X34 appears it will come in Satin Lacquer Black and has an MSRP of $3,000 (I think). Of course it won't matter about color after this round.
You do realize, of course, that there will have to be a 'sub-$5K' shoot out after this??? This will be way too much fun to stop, and like Doritos, no one can eat (listen to) just one!!!
We do plan to hopefully conduct several of the $2,500 events... then perhaps we can move on up to the $5K area. It may get harder to find manufacturers willing to loan out speakers in that price range though. Maybe if the $2,500 events show enough interest, they will see the merits of participating.
Those speakers are already selected to be a part of this. The SVS Ultra Towers, Emerald Physics CS2P's, and the yet to be announced speakers have already been selected. The voting is for three other candidates.
558 members may not necessarily agree with you though. :huh:
Where did you hear them and how were they setup... were you able to experiment with the setup? Do you think all those reviewers that have raved about how good they sound were exaggerating?
I think what we will likely do is go ahead and take the top three from this round that just miss the cut (speakers ranked 4th thru 6th in this poll), which right now would be the Dynaudio DM 3/7 (or Excite 32 or 34), Tannoy Precision 6.2 and Ascend Acoustics Sierra Towers. Then we will have another poll to vote for the other three to be included, but we will have several more added to the list.
For the third $2,500 round, we will do the same... take the top three that miss the cut from the second round and vote for three more. Hopefully we can have between 2-3 events per year, but we will just have to see. It is time consuming, expensive and it sometimes can be difficult to schedule with people flying in from several different areas.
As far as a winner... that really isn't what it is going to be about, as much as evaluating the speakers and pointing out what we hear. This isn't designed to be a "shoot-out" where we will rank them. We could easily all choose different favorites... and we will probably all state our personal favorites, but you might pick one different, depending on your taste. Either way, it may be difficult to always be able to have our "favorite" or "favorites" back for the next round. Obviously my Arx A5 will be here for this next round and each round thereafter, but it is hardly a fair comparison considering $750 vs $2,000-$3,000, yet it may be unfair to the more expensive models... who knows. I am not sure I can afford a pair of these speakers we will be evaluating, so there is no guarantee my personal favorite of this event will be around for the next event.
I feel like I should've did the search before I voted blindly. Obviously the most interesting speakers here based on the engineering and excitement factor should be:
Ascend Acoustics Sierra Tower (RAAL Tweeter)
GT Audio Works GTA 1
Von Schweikert VR-22
I owned Maggie 1.7's for awhile. To me, they had way too much lower bass distortion to keep long term. Also, they need a lot of room to sound their best. Wonderful HF performance.
For the same cost, the ATC SCM-19's perform much better.
Yeah, the ascend with raal tweeter seams to be a really good speakers. I will be sad to not see in them in the competition. I was waiting that voting pool and reviews before ordering. I'm two fingers close of pushing the order button on their Web site, I wanted to be sure to see their value vs all those other good brand before pulling the trigger.
They were the Studios but they were in a room with a bunch of other speakers. They weren't ideally set up. But neither were the others. I really wanted to know how the Salks compared to the Ascends. I too am looking to pull the trigger on the Ascends but the Dynaudios are great
Yes they were the Excite 36 speakers and although they were comparable to the B & W CM10s, I felt like the Dynaudios had that extra depth that won me over. Of course the CM10s win for looks. The replacements for the Dynaudios are the Exite 38s and they look a lot better
It just so happened that i am in the process of upgrading/changing my front three speakers and have spent a few week looking through a lot of material in this quest. My final three were Seas Pendragon, Sierra towers, and slim tower.
It's bad to see that the Salk song tower and ascend acoustics are similar speakers in performance, there doing around 700 votes together but won't make the top 6. I would really like to see a ribbon for the competition.
Yep... and the Dynaudio will make the event, if we can get them to participate. Hopefully with the Excite model instead of the DM. Unfortunately the mystery speaker has had some delays, so maybe we can work it into the next round.
I was just informed by Walter at Underwood HiFi that Emerald Physics is going to have to pass, as they do not have time to get the speakers ready, despite they are a sponsor and previously committed to including them. I am certainly disappointed, but it is what it is. Going forward... we will not do anymore automatic including... all speakers will be voted on and then if any manufacturer decides not to include their speaker, it will speak to all who voted for them.
So... the Tannoy Precision 6.2 speakers are in... provided can get them to participate. I will make the call tomorrow and find out.
I was just informed by Walter at Underwood HiFi that Emerald Physics is going to have to pass, as they do not have time to get the speakers ready, despite they are a sponsor and previously committed to including them. I am certainly disappointed, but it is what it is. Going forward... we will not do anymore automatic including... all speakers will be voted on and then if any manufacturer decides not to include their speaker, it will speak to all who voted for them. So... the Tannoy Precision 6.2 speakers are in... provided can get them to participate. I will make the call tomorrow and find out.
Sounds like a bad way to do business. Poor customer service is often the difference between success and failure for a company. A public forum such as Home Theater Shack should be an opportunity to exhibit exceptional customer service.
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