The idea is to be able to accurately reproduce a symphony such as Beethoven's 9th cohesively. Pretty tough to do. His room SUCKS. Reflections out of the ying yang and his view is amazing but is also a solid wall of windows. Problem is that you can't put drapes over them. The view is spectacular. His budget is really $7-8K.
I see Parasound C2, Tact S2150, Lyngdorf DPA-1. All are a bit $$ really. If they REALLY do the job he might bite. Issue is that we are having a hard time actually hearing anything here in Roanoke, VA. Any good places to visit within 4 hrs?
He has two 300 watt Hafler monoblocks but that is the extent of his working audio equipment.
Looking hard at the AV123 LS6 speakers. Willing to listen to other suggestions. Especially if they can be had used.
Suggestions and experience with this issue are greatly appreciated.
Can we have a picture. I would not regard the room as hopeless for classical reproduction. Rooms that are very live can actually sound very good.
When I did my main studio, one of the reasons I enlarged the windows was to increase reflections. The room is still a little on the dead side for my taste, but pretty good. My lower level room is a large space, with a wall of windows facing the speakers. The room has an echo, outside the Haas fusion zone. Actually the room sounds very good. I have noted this about live rooms previously. What I have noted is that if the speakers do not have a really smooth midband, your are in for trouble. I slightly rolled off top end does not help under those circumstances either.
Do not assume that room will be a dog. It may well sound excellent for classical music. Pop music is a completely different ball of wax under these circumstances.
Due to the way pop music is engineered, and given the the quite appalling vocal technique of the majority of pop artists, the circumstances for the optimal reproduction of that genre of music is totally different.
I was in the Twin Cities this week and heard the Choir of Kings College Chapel Cambridge under their long time conductor, Stephen Cleobury. Wonderful concert, and of course almost all of the sound reaching you is ambient as you would expect. With really good speakers playing back properly engineered and recorded classical music in an ambient space is not a disaster. Two channel will be fine, and you won't need Dolby prologic algorithms to get your ambiance back.
The only caveat is to make it a dead as you can behind the speakers, and try and direct the speakers at the wall of windows.
