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[Davemcc]

Salk is not like other ID companies. When you contact them, you deal with Jim Salk personally. Any issues you might have, he deals with personally. He will discuss your needs in advance and if you want a custom finish, he personally goes to his exotic wood dealer to select your custom veneer. Most speakers are made to order instead of pulled from inventory. My understanding is that no Salk speaker has ever been returned following an in-home demo and well over 90% of every Salk speaker ever made is still with it's original owner. Further, the business number on the website indicates that that number is usually forwarded to Jim Salk's cell-phone. When you buy a Salk speaker, you are dealing with Jim Salk, not a corporation, and his reputation is impeccable. I'll admit, I have a fascination with Salk for the reasons above and I'm certain that at some point I will be a Salk owner.

 

[Swerd]

Dave

Thanks for saying that. From my own experience, I agree with all of what you say.

To add to that, Dennis Murphy the designer of the SongTowers, lives in the Wash, DC area, would take a personal interest in anyone who had problems with their SongTowers. When I first got mine, I (temporarily) felt they sounded a bit bright. Dennis made a few suggestions about placement, which did the trick for me. He also offered to come over and add an extra resistor to pad down the tweeter's response. That wasn't needed, but he did come over to my house anyway just to see the veneer and finish and to make certain that they sound like his original prototypes. Where else could you get that kind of service ?

 

[AGB]

Great! You will find that its a totally different sounding speaker as it uses soft dome(silk) Tweeters. Definitely not fatiguing and Harsh. Just for kicks audition the contour 3.4 from Dyn, they're amazing.

What are the pros/cons of a silk tweeter vs. something metal? I am pretty sure the tweets on the Monitor GS20's are metal.

I auditioned the Monitor GS20's (again) today with a NAD S300 it was very impressive. Anyone have experience with this amplifier? From what I understand it is no longer made, but the hi-fi store here as one left from their demo room. It is a little above my budget, but it blew away the other NAD and Integra that I auditioned.

 

[rded]

What are the pros/cons of a silk tweeter vs. something metal? I am pretty sure the tweets on the Monitor GS20's are metal.

I auditioned the Monitor GS20's (again) today with a NAD S300 it was very impressive. Anyone have experience with this amplifier? From what I understand it is no longer made, but the hi-fi store here as one left from their demo room. It is a little above my budget, but it blew away the other NAD and Integra that I auditioned.

Soft dome tweeters are not irritating and harsh! You may find dyns to be laid back but not fatiguing

 

[AUtiger]

Have you thought about separates? Emotiva is having a great sale. This would allow you to change out amps in the future if you wanted to start 2 ch and then go multi ch. Emotiva's pre/pro LMC1 even has a 50w 2ch in it which would be perfect for satellites in the equip room. If the LMC1 is out of stock check out audiogon.com for a used one. Call Emotiva and discuss with them what you are looking for; they are great to work with and give lots of personal attention. Good Luck on your quest! Be sure to update us on your final conquest and don't forget the SUB

 

[AGB]

Have you thought about separates? Emotiva is having a great sale. This would allow you to change out amps in the future if you wanted to start 2 ch and then go multi ch. Emotiva's pre/pro LMC1 even has a 50w 2ch in it which would be perfect for satellites in the equip room. If the LMC1 is out of stock check out audiogon.com for a used one. Call Emotiva and discuss with them what you are looking for; they are great to work with and give lots of personal attention. Good Luck on your quest! Be sure to update us on your final conquest and don't forget the SUB

I will definitely look into Emotiva. I was actually reading about them earlier today. I think I would prefer to go with an integrated amp, I generally don't like clutter. However, I do have space for seperates if I decide to go in that direction. I am somewhat frustrated today because I'm finding that the integrated amps that I have been looking at (NAD and Cambridge) do not have a phono line. I was hoping to avoid a phono pre-amp, but it doesn't look like that will be possible.

 

[Swerd]

Soft dome tweeters are not irritating and harsh! You may find dyns to be laid back but not fatiguing

This is a commonly held misbelief - that metal dome tweeters sound harsh or bright, and that soft dome tweeters do not.

In most cases, the real culprit is the woofer. There is a natural bump in a woofer's response in the upper midrange (3-6 kHz), caused by a resonance coming from where the cone meets the flexible surround. Most woofers have at least a little of this, but some have quite a bit. In general, it seems that the stiffer the cone material is, the worse these resonant bumps are. Many metal woofers suffer from this problem, but others with various fiber reinforcement, like kevlar or fiberglass, also have it.

This upper midrange noise can result in an irritating edge to a speaker's sound. Speakers that at first seem to add detail over and above what is in the recording generally suffer from these kind of upper midrange peaks. Not surprisingly, many people mistakenly believe this fatiguing sound comes from the tweeter and not the woofer. This upper midrange emphasis is often combined with a dip in the crossover region (usually 2.5-3 kHz) due to sub-optimal crossover slopes. Some commercial designs seem to have deliberately done this to compensate for the woofer's high frequency resonance bump.

A properly designed crossover will take a woofer's upper midrange peaks into account and filter them enough so that sound is inaudible.

 

[AGB]

This is a commonly held misbelief - that metal dome tweeters sound harsh or bright, and that soft dome tweeters do not.

In most cases, the real culprit is the woofer. There is a natural bump in a woofer's response in the upper midrange (3-6 kHz), caused by a resonance coming from where the cone meets the flexible surround. Most woofers have at least a little of this, but some have quite a bit. In general, it seems that the stiffer the cone material is, the worse these resonant bumps are. Many metal woofers suffer from this problem, but others with various fiber reinforcement, like kevlar or fiberglass, also have it.

This upper midrange noise can result in an irritating edge to a speaker's sound. Speakers that at first seem to add detail over and above what is in the recording generally suffer from these kind of upper midrange peaks. Not surprisingly, many people mistakenly believe this fatiguing sound comes from the tweeter and not the woofer. This upper midrange emphasis is often combined with a dip in the crossover region (usually 2.5-3 kHz) due to sub-optimal crossover slopes. Some commercial designs seem to have deliberately done this to compensate for the woofer's high frequency resonance bump.

A properly designed crossover will take a woofer's upper midrange peaks into account and filter them enough so that sound is inaudible.

Swerd,

I have no idea what you just said, but it definitely sounds like you know your sh*t!!

In all seriouness, I envy that kind of technical knowledge. Very cool. But I guess what we are all looking for is an audio experience that in the end sounds wonderful to the individual listening to it. And depending on the listener that can definitely be a number of different things!

Anyway, after doing some more reading today after the advice of the forum I am starting to get very interested in going with seperates. I am hoping I can demo the Dynaudios on Rotel seperates.

 

[gus6464]

Take it from me AGB that high end audiophilia when it comes to electronics is a crock. As long as you buy something that delivers enough power to the speakers the rest won't matter one bit. I got my Arcam A80 in the mail that I bought used and I was thinking I was getting a good deal (retail $1200, paid $420), but the damn thing sounds no different than the 7 year old Sony AVR it replaced (paid $300 new).

The reason I am really pissed off is because when I was auditioning speakers all the sales guys would tell me that the speakers they sold would sound better with Arcam, Rotel, Rega, Creek, etc. instead of cheaper gear like HK, Yamaha, Pioneer, etc. and I actually believed them. At this point I would recommend you spend $3800 on speakers and $200 on a integrated like the Pioneer Elite A-35R as long as the speakers are fairly efficient (88dB+).

 

[Swerd]

I have no idea what you just said...

A picture is worth 1,000 words. The attached graph shows the raw frequency response of two 6" woofers. Both are made by Dayton and are 4 ohm (not 4?). These show just the woofer's response without any crossover, other filter, or cabinet. The blue line is from a paper cone woofer and the red line is from an aluminum cone wooofer. Both look smooth below about 1000 Hz. The paper woofer has two big peaks, one at about 1500 Hz and the other between 2000 and 4000 Hz. The aluminum woofer is smooth up to about 2000 Hz, with some big ugly peaks at 6000 Hz and higher.

Those peaks are the upper midrange peaks that I described in my earlier post. You definitely don't want to hear them - they are the source of that harsh irritating edgy sound. A crossover should suppress them to the point of being inaudible. You can see in the graph how much louder they are than the smooth sound below 1000 Hz. Some crossovers, even though they may be set to about 2000 Hz, will still let some of that noise through.

Good luck with the search - the more you listen the more you learn. Both Dynaudio and Rotel make good stuff.

 

[Swerd]

I have to agree with gus6464. Speakers are where the "rubber hits the road". You will be better off spending more money on good speakers than high priced electronic gear. As long as you have enough power to drive your speakers without clipping, there are little or no differences in various brands of amps/receivers/preamps that are worth the huge differences in price. I bought all my amps used for about $1 per watt.

 

[3db]

I have to agree with gus6464. Speakers are where the "rubber hits the road". You will be better off spending more money on good speakers than high priced electronic gear. As long as you have enough power to drive your speakers without clipping, there are little or no differences in various brands of amps/receivers/preamps that are worth the huge differences in price. I bought all my amps used for about $1 per watt.

I agree in principle but some amps like the NADs have a more robust power supply then their Denon Yamaha counterparts. Although you pay more money for that, it also futur proofs your purchase should the upgrade bug bite you again and you start looking at speakers that proove more difficult to drive. That would be my only reason for paying a little more for an amp/receiver. This strictly 2 channel I'm talking about. When it comes to HT, the feature sets contained in a receiver factor more into the equation.

 

[leo1058]

so get 200wpc into 8ohm 2-channel and never worry about upgrading for a long time.
Brand wont matter much. just stick with a company with good rep. Good Luck!!

 

[AGB]

Auditioned the Dynaudio Focus 220s with the Rotel 1070 series. The Rotel has 130 wpc, at my budget I don't think I would be able to step up to their 200 wpc amp. It is possible that this might be what I go with. It was the best demo I have had yet. I would like to demo the Monitor GS20s with the Rotel, but unfortunately the hi-fi shop that carries Monitor does not carry Rotel. I plan on heading back over there tomorrow to demo the Monitors with two different NADs. One is the S300, and the other is a surround sound amp (not sure of the model).

 

[Davemcc]

Auditioned the Dynaudio Focus 220s with the Rotel 1070 series. The Rotel has 130 wpc, at my budget I don't think I would be able to step up to their 200 wpc amp. It is possible that this might be what I go with. It was the best demo I have had yet. I would like to demo the Monitor GS20s with the Rotel, but unfortunately the hi-fi shop that carries Monitor does not carry Rotel. I plan on heading back over there tomorrow to demo the Monitors with two different NADs. One is the S300, and the other is a surround sound amp (not sure of the model).

I just got the Dynaudio Focus 140's and I'm running with the Rotel 1075. I already feel compelled to upgrade the amp to a 4 ohm stable amp with at least 200wpc @ 8 ohms. I'm leaning towards the Emotiva XPA-5.

 

[gus6464]

I really can't see most speakers needing more than an Emotiva XPA-2 to power them. Only speakers I can think of that would like more juice than that is the B&W 802/801/800D although not really needed. Those and the high end dynaudio's with the insanely dynamic drivers.