I took my brother to my favorite local speaker shop today. He was looking for a pair of small quality monitors, primarily for his living room. They are used for a mix of music and TV. Movie watching is done in his basement HT. We listened to the Rega RS1, Epos ELS3, Focal Chorus 706V, a pair of used Silverline monitors, Era D5 and Cambridge S30.
He's had my pair of D5's for the last few weeks so we used those as a reference to compare the other speakers to a known quantity. They were the most expensive pair of the bunch and I think we agree that they were also the best sounding. They were out of his price range and I won't sell him mine.
Of the speakers he was considering, I think he liked the Focals best. They had excellent bass and decent highs but I found the midrange somewhat veiled. They filled the room easily but I couldn't exactly describe them as having a warm, rich tone. They were pretty nice and would be perfect for somebody with a fairly large room that wanted some good solid bass.
The Rega were decent, much lighter than the Focals and with much less bass. I'm not sure whether to describe them as airy or thin. We put them in the mix a couple of times to compare but they really had some trouble filling the room with sound. They would be good for somebody looking for that particular sound, i.e. light and detailed without a ton of bass.
The Silverlines were a pretty expensive speaker when new and came with a gorgeous wood finish. By any description, they seemed to perform well but they had some kind of tonal issue that I can't really put into words. I found I really didn't enjoy them but I can't put my finger on exactly why. I'm leaning towards a crossover issue but I couldn't really say that with any certainty.
The Cambridge S30 didn't really even belong in this competition and my brother didn't want to listen to them beyond 30 seconds or so. They were thin, nasally and lacked any meaningful bass. I had high hopes for these speakers based on some of the reviews here but I was sadly disappointed even considering that they were the least expensive speaker we heard. Even at their price point, they were disappointing.
The winner of this audition and the pair that my brother bought and took home was the Epos ELS3. A big factor in the decision was price. The Epos were $300 less than the Focals. Another factor was size. The Epos were quite a bit smaller than the Focals and were a better fit to sit on his TV stand next to the TV. Sound wise, the Epos give up nothing to some of the more expensive speakers. They had more clarity than most of the others, including the Focals. They were the clearest and most natural sounding to me. They do give up a little bass to the Focals, expected due it's size but he also runs a sub in that system so it's no big deal.
When we got the Epos to his house, we compared them back to back with my Era D5's. At normal volume, they seem very similar. Once we turned up the volume, the difference between the two was readily apparent. The D5's maintained their sound quality as loud as he cared to push them. At the same volume setting on the receiver, the Epos lost some of their sound quality, not to the point of breaking up or bottoming out. They simply became a little less pleasant at higher volumes than I would like. I'd like to blame it on the receiver, a Yamaha former HTIB receiver, but I can't because it drove the Era's just fine to that volume level.
I'm sure he will be happy with the Epos. I tried not to guide his decision. I let him sit and listen to all the speakers as much as he wanted and replaced the ones he wanted to hear again. He made his decision based on a combination of sound quality, price and WAF.
