If I were to upgrade my towers, which one of these is the best deal?

[AcuDefTechGuy]

That's not a bad price for them. My only qualm is the sharp edges. It causes diffraction and it doesn't look as good as these:

The S-1EX dealer wants 6K (even though he offered 5k last time I was there...) they stopped making the S-1EX and he's had the display for at least a year. He should be happy to just break even! If I find employment soon i'll find out how much he paid and attempt to negotiate a fair deal for the both of us. If I could walk away with those for 3.5K, i'd probably do so over the R900. It would take some serious thought.

An authorized dealer asked me for $4K for the S-2EX. Same exact 100% beryllium tweeter and magnesium midrange and same bass driver as the S-1EX.

 

[monkish54]

Jared, school should be number one priority.

Speakers can wait.

Someone doesn't want some competition in the "who owns more speakers" race! XD

I appreciate you looking out, ADTG. <3

Right now I don't have to pay for school. Plus, it's super cheap..

It's the last S-1EX i know of in Cali. If i can snag it for that low, I won't let it pass me by!

Once I graduate from community college (which is going to happen very quickly considering I have only been able to get 2 classes a semester :O) and I move on to real people university...the cost is going to be immense.

One quarter at UCSB is $4,318. :O

I'm gonna have to suffer with student loans whether I buy the S-1EX/R900 or not. Might as well have 2 nice pair of speakers to help make the suffering better. XD

Whatever I end up buying (whenever I end up buying it) will be my last speaker until I lead a financially stable existence. XD NOT COUNTING DIY, of course.

 

[monkish54]

It wasn't authorized, though. .

That's lame.

 

[monkish54]

An authorized dealer asked me for $4K for the S-2EX. Same exact 100% beryllium tweeter and magnesium midrange and same bass driver as the S-1EX.

Yeah but there is only one bass driver. It's like a 4K version of my 2K Philharmonic 2's.

With the S-1EX I get a few "upgrades":

1. More efficient.
2. More bass
3. Better power handling

 

[WARMACHINE4444]

Congrats on your purchase!!!!

How much did they end up costing you?

And what color did you get??

Was it this one:

I got 3 quotes, went with the lowest one, all from authorized dealers. Was asked not to broadcast it but. Not as good as deal as DPS apparently was offered. It's the rosewood I am getting,

Wow those kefs look sweet! Enjoy your new speakers

 

[monkish54]

You think those look sexy? Check out these:

 

[monkish54]

 

[PENG]

After listening to those for a couple of hours powered by 2 KW amps, walked to the other room and listened to the little KEFs with sharp edges, closed my eyes, and could not help but think that they were close enough in SQ, for 2/13 of the price. The Blades were great with violin solo though, comparable to what I heard from the 802D.

 

[DS-21]

How do you figure that?

Well, let me give you a little anecdote. When I was in law school, I became friends with an up-and-coming artist in the local hip-hop scene. He's put an EP or two on iTunes. For his first one, after he mixed it, he wanted to come over to my old place (setup was three bespoke speakers based on the Tannoy System 12 DMT II up front, 8" Tannoy Dual Concentrics for surrounds, multisubs with Exodus Audio Maelstrom-X and a couple Aurasound drivers) to hear how it really sounded.

I daresay it's perhaps a little bit...Southern strategy to suggest that hip-hop artists don't care about good sound.

Take Eminem as one simple example: whats the target market likely going to be listening to music on, Philharmonics or Beats by Dr. Dre?

Though I'm astounded by how many people tote those awful-sounding headphones around (though Grados aren't much better...), probably neither. Probably iBuds. Which, considering, aren't actually that bad.

***The reality is that speakers like Philharmonics are a significant minority.

That calls for a "Please proceed, Governor."

That's not to say they don't sound good (everything I heard through them sounded great as a matter of fact) ***

...and you just eviscerated your own argument. Well done.

That's not a bad price for them. My only qualm is the sharp edges. It causes diffraction and it doesn't look as good as these:

Honestly, if I were an undergrad looking for top-tier speakers to tie me over for several years, I'd be looking hard for some old S-3EX's. Significantly cheaper, still well-crafted, and I'm not at all convinced that the ceramic-graphite tweeter is actually a step down from the beryllium one.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Honestly, if I were an undergrad looking for top-tier speakers to tie me over for several years, I'd be looking hard for some old S-3EX's. Significantly cheaper, still well-crafted, and I'm not at all convinced that the ceramic-graphite tweeter is actually a step down from the beryllium one.

My thinking as well.

I recently heard from our local AH Geologist that Graphite is a precursor to Diamond. IOW, Graphite ain't so bad.

I don't know if it is true, but one reviewer said the S-4EX actually measured flatter than the S-2EX, which in turn measured flatter than the S-1EX, although I'm confident all the TAD designs measure very well.

The point is, can we actually hear the difference in a DBT between the Graphite vs Beryllium or S-2EX vs S-1EX in a 2.1 setup using subs, hypotheses aside?

I mean with point of diminishing returns and all. I think most people can't tell much difference between KEF Muon vs Blade vs Reference vs R in a DBT if the bass were taken out of the equation (using subs).

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

The Blades were great with violin solo though, comparable to what I heard from the 802D.

I'll agree to that.

 

[Steve81]

Well, let me give you a little anecdote. When I was in law school, I became friends with an up-and-coming artist in the local hip-hop scene. He's put an EP or two on iTunes. For his first one, after he mixed it, he wanted to come over to my old place...to hear how it really sounded.

Anecdote aside, the simple fact is, that's how it "really sounded" on your system in your room... No offense, but what good is that if you're trying to a reach an audience that isn't comprised of people like you?

I daresay it's perhaps a little bit...Republican to suggest that hip-hop artists don't care about good sound

It's not a matter of indifference towards good sound; it's a matter of having as many people as is feasible hear artist intent. I mean, why be a musician if you don't want people to hear you as you intend to be heard? An artist can't change what speakers people buy, but he can look and see what people are using to listen to his music, and tracks can be mixed accordingly.

As it is, GranteedEV has already acknowledged the probability that adjustments are made to suit playback under circumstances such as iPod buds. As I see it (and perhaps he disagrees), it seems to be a matter of degrees that we don't see eye to eye rather than simply not acknowledging that the issue exists. This is the crux of the matter IMO, since if you acknowledge that adjustments are made, but have no idea what they are or what their magnitude is for any specific recording, any concept of true accuracy goes right out the window with it. You can still achieve good sound, but true accuracy doesn't exist. We go back right into the circle of confusion. Do you disagree with the assertion that adjustments can be and probably are made to acknowledge the realities of the market? Or do you steadfastly hold that all music is mixed to sound its best and convey artist intent only on a non-existent "reference" system?

...and you just eviscerated your own argument. Well done.

You of all people should understand the difference between a subjective opinion of good sound and the hard fact of whether or not a speaker is accurate/true to artist intent. Or are ADTG's B&Ws accurate since he finds them to sound natural as well?

 

[DS-21]

I recently heard from our local AH Geologist that Graphite is a precursor to Diamond. IOW, Graphite ain't so bad.

I think there's a lot of materials fetishization in audio, mostly driven by the need for various firms' marketing arms to differentiate their product I suspect.

I stopped caring about what stuff was made out of when I heard the Tannoy D700 in the late 1990s. If a 10" poly midrange (playing up to 1.5kHz or so!) with a fairly standard metal dome could sound that spectacular, then clearly design plays more of a role than materials.

I don't know if it is true, but one reviewer said the S-4EX actually measured flatter than the S-2EX, which in turn measured flatter than the S-1EX, although I'm confident all the TAD designs measure very well.

Probably true as to that reviewer, but I'm sure we're talking margin of error/measurement setup differences rather than "real" differences.

While I've not heard them in the same room, I can't say from memory that the treble from the Be dome one struck me as any better up top than the CG one. (Bass I can't compare, because different rooms.)

IMO, the choice between those three comes down to looks, cone area, and price sensitivity. The translam cabinets of the higher end Elite EX speakers are clearly more expensive to produce than the more conventional cabinets of the diffusion-line ones, and I expect the teak veneer on the higher end ones is more expensive than the wenge/beech on the diffusion line ones. I think the woofers on the higher end line are a bit bigger. Obviously, the diffusion line is cheaper, though currently (given the idiocy with which Pioneer marketed these speakers, and the fact that they came out just before the Bush crash) the price difference may be less if one can find the speakers.

I recently took some in-room measurements (crudely, just using the Quick Measure function on my Anthem MRX) of the three Pioneer Elite EX S-iw691L's* I'm considering using or parting out for my front three speakers, to see if I could just run them open baffle in the midbass (~120-500Hz) to delay the transition to omnipolar radiation a bit. (The concentric is in a separate closed box.) Turns out I can't (drop like a rock from 300Hz down) but the response was the best I've seen in this room from about 500Hz up (smoothly declining sound power), and they sounded just so focused and coherent. And that's with in-wall bezels just propped up on stands!

Andrew Jones designed some winners with this line. Pity so few have been able to hear them.

*In-walls that use the same part number (per Pioneer's parts website) magnesium+graphite concentric driver as the S-3EX, along with sandwich-cone woofers that have a presumably a little less motor (eyeballed average of my three, taken with a Dayton WT3 in windows xp running in Parallels on my MacBook, is Qes=0.85, Fs=55Hz) than the S-4EX's woofers.

 

[Steve81]

I think there's a lot of materials fetishization in audio, mostly driven by the need for various firms' marketing arms to differentiate their product I suspect.

And IMO there in lies why we don't have a true standard and correspondingly, actual certifiable accuracy. It would destroy the market as we know it.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I think there's a lot of materials fetishization in audio, mostly driven by the need for various firms' marketing arms to differentiate their product I suspect.

I stopped caring about what stuff was made out of when I heard the Tannoy D700 in the late 1990s. If a 10" poly midrange (playing up to 1.5kHz or so!) with a fairly standard metal dome could sound that spectacular, then clearly design plays more of a role than materials.

I can see that. I'm not sure I can hear a significant difference among all the different driver materials either. I own speakers with Diamond, Beryllium, Titanium, Magnesium, and Aluminum tweeters. None with Graphite , but I doubt I could tell a significant difference.

 

[DS-21]

I can see that. I'm not sure I can hear a significant difference among all the different driver materials either. I own speakers with Diamond, Beryllium, Titanium, Magnesium, and Aluminum tweeters. None with Graphite , but I doubt I could tell a significant difference.

Honestly, I've only heard issues I can fairly ascribe to tweeter design/material, as opposed to poor engineering around the tweeter design/material, such as failure to constrain the tweeter’s directivity at the bottom of its passband to match the directivity of the midrange/midwoofer at the top of its passband.
First, the Vifa/ScanSpeak ring radiators. I’ve yet to hear a speaker with that design that didn’t sound a little bit like it was playing from a ways down a tunnel. It’s rare that I’ll find that consistency about an individual driver despite the designer or crossover. In fact, the only other one of which I can think is the old ScanSpeak 8545 (used in the Wilson Watt and other speakers, less favored now than about a decade ago; Usher copied it and still use their knockoff), which always seemed unnaturally dark in the lower mids to me. Even with a Joseph Audio-style cauer-elliptic filter. Even the old MB Quart titanium dome tweeter, I once heard tamed and very good sounding. (Avalon Avatar)

Second, as a class, I've yet to hear a true ribbon that wasn't fatiguing after a fairly long listen. (I’ve heard, or used, Raven, Fountek, Aurum Cantus I think, and LCY). Which makes sense, considering that basically all modern ribbons (including the current fetish-object Raal) are basically a diaphragm in a diffraction slot.

 

[DS-21]

And IMO there in lies why we don't have a true standard and correspondingly, actual certifiable accuracy. It would destroy the market as we know it.

And IMO there in lies why we don't have a true standard and correspondingly, actual certifiable accuracy. It would destroy the market as we know it.

That’s silly. You’re conflating two things: production standards, and reproduction standards.

Production standards are what they are. We might want more standardization, but we’re not likely to get it.

Reproduction, however, can and should be measured for accuracy to whatever is on that source material.

Now, of course some brands of speakers/headphones (e.g. B&W, Bose, Beats, Grado) are going to design to a house sound that they find (by focus groups, dumb luck, whatever) appeals to a certain segment of the market, rather than to accuracy. Appalling numbers of firms in the audio industry don’t even know what accuracy is, given the dominance of speakers that radiate midrange mushroom clouds on the market.

And some are going to use eye-catching styling, high perceived value, appeals to various latent fetishes in the audiophile community, etc. to allow their product to stand out in the market.

But that’s a different discussion from accuracy, and a different discussion from “artist’s intent.”

 

[Steve81]

Production standards are what they are. We might want more standardization, but we’re not likely to get it....Reproduction, however, can and should be measured for accuracy to whatever is on that source material.

Accuracy in reproduction doesn't exist because there is no accepted industry wide standard for it. That's the whole point of my tangent here. There is no THX here which at least tries to deliver some semblance of standards for both the recording studio AND the home in an attempt to align the sound between the two. Even among recording studios, you'll find a variety of loudspeakers being used. Many do in fact use what you'd term as "accurate" loudspeakers, but this doesn't account for the entirety of studios by any means. As B&W will proudly note, they are also sited in recording studios and used for monitoring. Should we just chuck everything coming out of Abbey Road and Skywalker, as the two most prominent examples?

Regarding standards, in measurements, we have a strict, unyielding definition for what a kilogram is, and because of this, we can calibrate a scale with some semblance of real accuracy.

As you'll note, nobody really agrees what accurate sound actually is, and the market is evidence of this. Even at the high end, cost no object, there is a wide variation in how speakers will sound. Which one is right? Who is the ultimate arbiter of truth? You? Me? Floyd Toole? Paul Klipsch? John Bowers? Right now, it's nobody, and that's the most disturbing thing I can imagine in a hobby where people will spend massive amounts of money in the pursuit of "accurate sound". As the quote I referenced states, it's nothing more than a circle of confusion. Reading that a few times, for me at least, is rather sobering, and quite damning to the industry at large.

Ultimately, it really doesn't make a whole lot of difference what the standard is (to a point), just having a true measurable standard that is adhered to in every studio and that speaker manufacturers can attempt to design to makes a huge difference. It's the difference between setting up a receiver using an inexpensive but calibrated mic that came with the package versus a high dollar uncalibrated mic that you put in because it's more "accurate".

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Don't you guys think we get too caught up in theories and seriousness of this hobby?

They are just speakers. If they sound great, then well, that's just great. As long as the speaker don't suck, the more important issue is the actual source quality.

Now some of us just like to collect speakers as a hobby.

Perhaps our wives would rather have us occupied at home with speakers than go out and drink and cause trouble.

 

[Steve81]

Don't you guys think we get too caught up in theories and seriousness of this hobby?

Really, that's the logical conclusion of my reasoning. Buy what sounds best/natural to you and move on.

Pretending that true accuracy is possible without real strict standards in both the studio and the home is like pretending you can give the mass of a rock in kilograms using your hands as a scale without having any idea of what a kilogram is.