Best Bookshelf's under 1k For Contemporary and Classical?

[N3ptuNe]

Hi All,

Could someone please help me decide which Main L&R Bookshelf speakers to buy please?

I have a budget of 1.1k. I've looked at Kef, Paradigm, Yamaha, Krix and I feel like it's comparing apples with apples, because

• I don't know much about electrocics and speakers

• because people who review them listlen to Rock, or review movie sound quality.

There main goal will be playing Contemporary classical and classical, as well as Extreme virtuoso Solo performances and Movies.

I guess I'm worried about buying an expensive (well expensive for me as a music student) and the violins, orchestra,piano's will sound dull or synthetic? or to mid range etc.

Any suggestions will be highly appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[Impulse]

For the music you listen to, I would reccommend something like the Sierra1 bookshelf. Fantastic string sounds and reproduces everything rather well.

Im not too sure about the yamaha or krix speakers as I have not heard, but imo the best yamaha has to offer are their studio monitors which will sound nice, but I just dont know thats what you are looking for.

The kef series also sound fantastic, very detailed and sounds that it comes from a single source which is nice.

Definteley try to audition some paradigm and bowers & wilkins, which I think are fantastic for classical.

Those bowers really sparkle on the trumpets!

 

[3db]

Definately look at PSB. I've used an older pair of Image 1Bs as mains for a secondary system and they are excellent with classical. Just a little bass shy but not bad for a speaker with its small dimensions.

Bookshelf Speakers - PSB Speakers

 

[N3ptuNe]

Thanks allot, I'm going to look up the Sierra1's and PSB weigh up the cost of a pair. I wish my budget was 20k, one day

Thanks in advance,

 

[Impulse]

Indeed, I forgot the psbs xD
The image series I believe go as high as $650 and they have beautiful clarity.

The sierra 1s start at $849 i think depending on the finish

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi All,

Could someone please help me decide which Main L&R Bookshelf speakers to buy please?

I have a budget of 1.1k. I've looked at Kef, Paradigm, Yamaha, Krix and I feel like it's comparing apples with apples, because

• I don't know much about electrocics and speakers

• because people who review them listlen to Rock, or review movie sound quality.

There main goal will be playing Contemporary classical and classical, as well as Extreme virtuoso Solo performances and Movies.

I guess I'm worried about buying an expensive (well expensive for me as a music student) and the violins, orchestra,piano's will sound dull or synthetic? or to mid range etc.

Any suggestions will be highly appreciated.

Thank you!

In your budget and proposed usage, there is one clear winner and an easy recommendation.

It is the ATC SCM reference monitor. This studio has them for sale at $1000 per pair.

These speakers have phenomenal clarity and detail, without a trace of shrillness. They handle the fortissimo passages without distress.

When funds permit if you add a good sealed sub crossing over in the 60 to 80 Hz range, 60 is optimal as 60 Hz is the speakers 6 db point, then you will have an absolutely superb system.

These are the speakers Billy Woodman uses in his home and he does not use a sub.

The designer Billy Woodman is I think the best driver designer in the world.

All his drivers are carefully hand made at their factory at Stroud Gloucestershire.

This is their showroom.

They keep chickens outside to keep all employees in eggs, and grow their own vegetables!

 

[Irishman]

Hi All,

Could someone please help me decide which Main L&R Bookshelf speakers to buy please?

I have a budget of 1.1k. I've looked at Kef, Paradigm, Yamaha, Krix and I feel like it's comparing apples with apples, because

• I don't know much about electrocics and speakers

• because people who review them listlen to Rock, or review movie sound quality.

There main goal will be playing Contemporary classical and classical, as well as Extreme virtuoso Solo performances and Movies.

I guess I'm worried about buying an expensive (well expensive for me as a music student) and the violins, orchestra,piano's will sound dull or synthetic? or to mid range etc.

Any suggestions will be highly appreciated.

Thank you!

For the money, you'd be hard pressed to beat B&W's CM line.

Bowers and Wilkins - 5" 2-Way Bookshelf Speakers (Pair) - Rosenut - CM1R

Their CM1 monitor pair has the Nautilus tapered tube design to absorb unwanted sound from the rear of the tweeter, thereby reducing resonances. However, as far as bookshelf/monitor designs share a common shortcoming - they don't give a whole lot of bass extension. The most you can realistically expect is midbass extension (down to about 45hz, with a sensitivity of 84db). You'd be better either opting for the larger CM5 pair for about 30% more cost initially, or by adding a sub to your system to round it out (SVS and Hsu make great performers on that front). With the larger bass driver in the CM5 (6.5" vs 5" in the CM1), you may find that you won't use a sub at all except for movie watching.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Bowers+and+Wilkins+-+6-1/2"+2-Way+Bookshelf+Speakers+(Pair)+-+Rosenut/1276783.p?id=1218246220043&skuId=1276783&st=bowers and wilkins&cp=1&lp=3

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

In your budget and proposed usage, there is one clear winner and an easy recommendation.

These speakers have phenomenal clarity and detail, without a trace of shrillness. They handle the fortissimo passages without distress.

These are the speakers Billy Woodman uses in his home and he does not use a sub.

The designer Billy Woodman is I think the best driver designer in the world.

All his drivers are carefully hand made at their factory at Stroud Gloucestershire.

How much is their flagship speakers? Is it like $60,000 ? Do they use the same driver technology in their flagship and SCM7 monitors?

 

[TLS Guy]

For the money, you'd be hard pressed to beat B&W's CM line.

Bowers and Wilkins - 5" 2-Way Bookshelf Speakers (Pair) - Rosenut - CM1R

Their CM1 monitor pair has the Nautilus tapered tube design to absorb unwanted sound from the rear of the tweeter, thereby reducing resonances. However, as far as bookshelf/monitor designs share a common shortcoming - they don't give a whole lot of bass extension. The most you can realistically expect is midbass extension (down to about 45hz, with a sensitivity of 84db). You'd be better either opting for the larger CM5 pair for about 30% more cost initially, or by adding a sub to your system to round it out (SVS and Hsu make great performers on that front). With the larger bass driver in the CM5 (6.5" vs 5" in the CM1), you may find that you won't use a sub at all except for movie watching.

Bowers and Wilkins - 6-1/2" 2-Way Bookshelf Speakers (Pair) - Rosenut - CM5R

Small bookshelves are generally ported, when they would be better off being sealed.

Most bookshelves roll off in the 50 to 60 Hz range.

What you are forgetting is that a ported enclosure rolls off at 24 db per octave and a sealed one at 12 db per octave.

So if you have a ported and sealed bookshelf rolling off down 6 db at 60 Hz, the sealed enclosure will be down 18 db at 30 Hz and therefore still producing useful output, at 45 Hz it will be 12 db down producing very useful output. The ported speaker will be down 30 db at 30 Hz, which is the same as no output, and 18 db down at 45 Hz, where the sealed speaker has another 6 db of output.

The next issue, is that the sealed enclosure will splice much better and more naturally with the sub, performing a perfect fourth order composite crossover at 60 Hz, where as the ported enclosure, will be sixth order high pass and fourth order low pass.

There is another advantage of a sealed speaker, as you can boost the lower frequencies. You can not do that with a ported speaker, as it decouples from the box, and all you get is useless cone excursion, with no added output.

The reason you see more ported bookshelves is that it is much cheaper to build drivers for ported enclosures. However Billy Woodman is the acknowledged master at designing small high performance and high powered drivers, with minimal thermal compression. It is this latter issue that particularly puts his small drivers well at the top of the pack.

Much as I like the B & W CM series, these speakers are seriously outclassed by the SCM 7s

 

[TLS Guy]

How much is their flagship speakers? Is it like $60,000 ? Do they use the same driver technology in their flagship and SCM7 monitors?

Absolutely they do! I saw both their famous midrange domes and the drivers for the SCM 7s being built. Exactly the same wire flattening machine is used to make the wire for the edge wound voice coils. The same winding techniques and underhung gap designs are used, and incredibly close tolerance voice coil gaps, just under two thou. Despite the very close tolerance VC gaps, Billy and his staff say it is very rare for them to have a failed or returned driver, and they see very, very few fried drivers.

I was very impressed to say the least.

The other thing I could not help noticing, is that is was a really joyful place to work and it was obvious that there not only close working relationships, but close personal friendships as well.

It was obvious to me that making lots of money was not the priority. It was making enough to pay the bills and having fun making the best and most powerful systems in the world, like the system for Disney Hall, and the one they were building for Stamford University.

 

[Irishman]

Small bookshelves are generally ported, when they would be better off being sealed.

Most bookshelves roll off in the 50 to 60 Hz range.

What you are forgetting is that a ported enclosure rolls off at 24 db per octave and a sealed one at 12 db per octave.

So if you have a ported and sealed bookshelf rolling off down 6 db at 60 Hz, the sealed enclosure will be down 18 db at 30 Hz and therefore still producing useful output, at 45 Hz it will be 12 db down producing very useful output. The ported speaker will be down 30 db at 30 Hz, which is the same as no output, and 18 db down at 45 Hz, where the sealed speaker has another 6 db of output.

The next issue, is that the sealed enclosure will splice much better and more naturally with the sub, performing a perfect fourth order composite crossover at 60 Hz, where as the ported enclosure, will be sixth order high pass and fourth order low pass.

There is another advantage of a sealed speaker, as you can boost the lower frequencies. You can not do that with a ported speaker, as it decouples from the box, and all you get is useless cone excursion, with no added output.

The reason you see more ported bookshelves is that it is much cheaper to build drivers for ported enclosures. However Billy Woodman is the acknowledged master at designing small high performance and high powered drivers, with minimal thermal compression. It is this latter issue that particularly puts his small drivers well at the top of the pack.

Much as I like the B & W CM series, these speakers are seriously outclassed by the SCM 7s

The performance of monitor speakers doesn't hinge on ported vs sealed speakers. I think you're oversimplifying the OPs choices. If it was, everyone who cares about sound quality and frequency response would make nothing but sealed loudspeakers. Your comments about "useful" output is confusing to the situation, because typically sealed enclosures don't allow lower frequencies than ported enclosures.

I'm posting some observations from AVS forums to provide some further insight:

"The important differences are .

1. Ported designs need less power to produce output down to their tuning point.
2. Ported designs have better output at their tuning frequency then sealed design when driver/amp are similar.
3. Sealed designs have more output below and above the tuning of a ported design.
4. Sealed designs can inherently protect the driver from over excursion if the box is small enough. Ported designs need a SubSonicFilter to protect the driver.
5. Sealed designs need far greater power to achieve high SPL down low because there is a HUGE boost down low to get output.
5. Audiophile myths like tighter bass are not worthy of any science discussion."

 

[j_garcia]

AVS The only insight I ever found there was that I have no interest in that forum.

While all of these things are true, a great speaker's capability does no lie in general points and all of those are pretty generic.

 

[Irishman]

AVS The only insight I ever found there was that I have no interest in that forum.

While all of these things are true, a great speaker's capability does no lie in general points and all of those are pretty generic.

Way to be objective.

Look, I get it, right? We're all trying to balance measurements with learning what type of sound we prefer, and they're not always the same thing. But we can't let an irrational attachment to woo thinking overly influence others who rely on the forums for solid recommendations.

 

[nogaro]

Hi All,

Could someone please help me decide which Main L&R Bookshelf speakers to buy please?

I have a budget of 1.1k. I've looked at Kef, Paradigm, Yamaha, Krix and I feel like it's comparing apples with apples, because

• I don't know much about electrocics and speakers

• because people who review them listlen to Rock, or review movie sound quality.

There main goal will be playing Contemporary classical and classical, as well as Extreme virtuoso Solo performances and Movies.

I guess I'm worried about buying an expensive (well expensive for me as a music student) and the violins, orchestra,piano's will sound dull or synthetic? or to mid range etc.

Any suggestions will be highly appreciated.

Thank you!

I'd expect the CAOW1 would do pretty well too.

 

[j_garcia]

Way to be objective.

Look, I get it, right? We're all trying to balance measurements with learning what type of sound we prefer, and they're not always the same thing. But we can't let an irrational attachment to woo thinking overly influence others who rely on the forums for solid recommendations.

Well, the real issue is that everyone likes something different. A speaker that one person likes may not do it for someone else, which is why recommending speakers is difficult. I try to give people an idea of what they sound like and what they might compare to, because they have to do some listening themselves if they want to find the right speaker for them. Some just go and buy a speaker and they are happy with them because they make noise. At this price point however, there are a LOT of good speakers, which makes it even more difficult.

Sealed vs vented is a never ending debate as well, but regardless of the pros or cons of each, there are examples of both cases where the speaker defies the rules With a small-ish bookshelf speaker, they will almost always end up being crossed over so vented vs sealed tends to be less of an issue as long as the extension of said speaker is enough to blend well with a decent sub.

My addition would probably be the NHT Classic Three http://www.nhthifi.com/Three?sc=12&category=1210 It DOES fit the categories outlined. Sealed, but requires a fair amount of power to get the most bass out of them, and they like a lot of power. Well suited to classical IMO.

 

[STRONGBADF1]

Hi All,

Could someone please help me decide which Main L&R Bookshelf speakers to buy please?

I have a budget of 1.1k. I've looked at Kef, Paradigm, Yamaha, Krix and I feel like it's comparing apples with apples, because

• I don't know much about electrocics and speakers

• because people who review them listlen to Rock, or review movie sound quality.

There main goal will be playing Contemporary classical and classical, as well as Extreme virtuoso Solo performances and Movies.

I guess I'm worried about buying an expensive (well expensive for me as a music student) and the violins, orchestra,piano's will sound dull or synthetic? or to mid range etc.

Any suggestions will be highly appreciated.

Thank you!

Are you in Australia? The mention of Krix speakers has me wondering...so we can recommend speakers that are readily available to you or we can add overseas shipping into the budget.

Of the speakers you have listen to, which one did you like the most? What did you like and what didn't you like about that speaker?

Also, how loud and how far away do you want to listen and what do you plan on driving them with?

This should steer us in the correct direction.

 

[TLS Guy]

The performance of monitor speakers doesn't hinge on ported vs sealed speakers. I think you're oversimplifying the OPs choices. If it was, everyone who cares about sound quality and frequency response would make nothing but sealed loudspeakers. Your comments about "useful" output is confusing to the situation, because typically sealed enclosures don't allow lower frequencies than ported enclosures.

I'm posting some observations from AVS forums to provide some further insight:

"The important differences are .

1. Ported designs need less power to produce output down to their tuning point.
2. Ported designs have better output at their tuning frequency then sealed design when driver/amp are similar.
3. Sealed designs have more output below and above the tuning of a ported design.
4. Sealed designs can inherently protect the driver from over excursion if the box is small enough. Ported designs need a SubSonicFilter to protect the driver.
5. Sealed designs need far greater power to achieve high SPL down low because there is a HUGE boost down low to get output.
5. Audiophile myths like tighter bass are not worthy of any science discussion."

Everyone would not make sealed bookshelves. For one thing the cost is greater. As you point out they take more power.

However in a small bookshelf I think a sealed design has definite advantages.

There is noticeably more bass extension volume for volume, and there are significant driver protection issues.

If I were designing a reference small "bookshelf" monitor, I would definitely pick a sealed over a ported alignment. For a larger speaker, the advantages, disadvantages tend to become a wash, except in one area. Ported alignments are essentially resonant and are higher Q. The problem with sealed speakers that are low Q is that they tend to a high F3.

So that is why I favor aperiodic transmission lines. So you can get good bass extension with system Qt a at 0.5 or a bit below, without having to use a high Qt driver.

And by the way a tight well defined bass is mostly about total system Q. The total system Q of my TL designs are not possible with ported bass reflex enclosures.

You can however lower the Q of sealed designs with electronic equalization.

 

[N3ptuNe]

Thanks every one the responces are overwhelmingly great I have not had a chance to read all the posts, I will when I get to work Thanks in advance, Alot of the speakers above are not locally available. B&W in Australia are very expensive, like most things here! (A Packet of cigarettes cost $25US!!)
90% of the HI-FI acoustic shops have closed down due to our hefty TAXES on imports

The Paradigm Studio 20v5 are relatively cheap about $1099 a pair. The Sierras reviews are amazing but there is no dealer in Aus.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Thanks every one the responces are overwhelmingly great I have not had a chance to read all the posts, I will when I get to work Thanks in advance, Alot of the speakers above are not locally available. B&W in Australia are very expensive, like most things here! (A Packet of cigarettes cost $25US!!)
90% of the HI-FI acoustic shops have closed down due to our hefty TAXES on imports

The Paradigm Studio 20v5 are relatively cheap about $1099 a pair. The Sierras reviews are amazing but there is no dealer in Aus.

In this case my recommendation to you is grab a mix CD with music you know and like and start visiting local audio showrooms or even better if possible purchase (with option return) for audition in your home.
I know there are many local australian hifi speaker makers, I we know very little about them since most don't export to north america

here is the list of some:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1807323

This one description making all the right noises:
Aaron ATS 1 Beech

But this is not recommendation - you got to listen to them yourself to make a choice.

 

[N3ptuNe]

I just went to a local Hi-Fi dealer, I didn't have a chance to test the Paradigms, the sales guy wouldn't stop talking! "saying a budget of 1k will get you nothing, didn't stop talking utter crap! , he said the Paradigms are great but I should spend more, then went on to say the Yamaha Soavo2 are the worst speaker, and vaf are crap, and why just listen to classical what about hip hop etc He had nothing to audition even though the shop was massive and full of top of the line speakers., so I went to Vaf, and listened to their signature series small speaker! and WOW!!!!!! I could even hear the bow hitting the stings in Itzhak Perlmans Paganini Caprice op1 No 16. I was totally blown away with Sarasate Carmen Fantasy.

I then Jumped in the car and tested Krix and was not impressed at all they sounded like Sony, or Panasonic, very synthetic. I would love to test more but we are jumping on a plan overseas on Saturday perhaps I can test B&W and Paradigm in Thailand.