Possibly Changing my Living Room Mains

[Squishman]

Or these Kef's not too far away. https://www.facebook.com/share/1JvDu5ejMk/

 

[TLS Guy]

How about these? Long drive though. But that's fine. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1101443551436851/?ref=browse_tab&referral_code=marketplace_top_picks&referral_story_type=top_picks

I would avoid those, they have those old 'squarker' midrange drivers which sound awful.

 

[TLS Guy]

Or these Kef's not too far away. https://www.facebook.com/share/1JvDu5ejMk/

Those are good speakers, but a sealed design for close distance studio monitoring. They are a sealed design with not much bass.

 

[Squishman]

Those are good speakers, but a sealed design for close distance studio monitoring. They are a sealed design with not much bass.

I just realized it's a single 8". Would that be enough for me, playing rock rather loud?

 

[TLS Guy]

So a lot has happened today. I tried "direct" stereo setting and the LS sounded better, so the calibration settings betwixt my heights and fronts may have been interfering with a perfect judgement. But on direct, the infinities were still as good of better. I am actually shocked at the bass these little Infinites put out too (sub was off). It seems when I switch to the heights, direct turns off so it is hard to get a perfect A/B comparison. And with the amp in just stereo, my volumes were not the same. I had to keep turning up the mains to equal the volume of the heights. These small infinities do not seem to handle tremendous volume, but sound really good.
So also, my buddy at work let me try those Ascend two way speakers. If you recall, one had a torn woofer. That set. Two 6 inch woofers with a tweeter in the middle, looks like a standing center speaker. (or as far as @TLS Guy, a correct center if standing like a mini tower). So I got them home and placed gorilla tape (with his permission) over the tear just to hear them semi-properly. Then I discovered the other speaker, one woofer also as a tear!! Taped that too. Gorilla tape is amazing stuff, so I am able to get a good impression of what these sound like. Actually, the woofers are poly, so more a crack, or cracks than tears.
So after all that, they sound great. Just great. I had to see if they'd perform and they do.
If he gives these to me, which is what I think he wants to do, I'd order two woofers to the tune of $130 plus tax and shipping I think. I just wonder If I can do even better.
Where would I start if I were to build a set? I don't have a router or any kind of wood working expertise, so I'd have to pay to get cabs built. Maybe there is a kit that someone sells. I think I'd like a 3-way but only after talking to you Mark, if the midrange was up to snuff. I am super leery of 3 ways now. ha.

What I am suggesting is a reference TL. It would be similar to my family room speakers. These use the KEF B139 ported and the long NLA Dynaudio D76 dome midrange, one of the best ever, and ribbon tweeter.

I do have a problem with midrange drivers, as almost all are actually not mid range drivers, but just lower mid range drivers. A good mid range driver needs to cover the whole speech discrimination band and precious few can.

The KEF B139 is now available again from Falcon acoustics. Its power has been beefed up to 200 watts, but is T/S parameters are the same. It is one of the best drivers of all time and was the basis of many of John Wrights TL designs at TDL. People just never part with those. The Volt dome midrange drivers are now available in the US. These are a range of drivers that can handle to speech discrimination band at power. The only other is the ATC but that is not available OEM.
I have not settled on a tweeter. I would like the Hiquphon 3/4" Tweeter but it's spendy. There is a dearth of good 3/4 inch tweeters, because of the dearth of good midrange drivers to mate to. A 3/4" dome or equivalent is essential to get the wide dispersion out to 10K at least. 1" domes become directional too soon.

So what I have been doodling with is a TL based on the KEF B139 and a Volt dome mid. I would make sure it was an easy drive and use the late Raymond Cooke's impedance correction techniques like I have in my family room speakers.

If you are interested you should bring over music you know well, and give those family room speaker a good listen.

I have options for building the cabinets.

It is about time that Audioholics had a true reference speaker, and one on the top line.

So if you want to take a leap of faith I'm ready.

 

[TLS Guy]

I just realized it's a single 8". Would that be enough for me, playing rock rather loud?

I doubt it. They were designed for monitoring classical recordings in a small control room, like the BBC booth at the Albert Hall. The very last thing on Raymond Cooke's mind was pleasing rock heads.

 

[Squishman]

What I am suggesting is a reference TL. It would be similar to my family room speakers. These use the KEF B139 ported and the long NLA Dynaudio D76 dome midrange, one of the best ever, and ribbon tweeter.

I do have a problem with midrange drivers, as almost all are actually not mid range drivers, but just lower mid range drivers. A good mid range driver needs to cover the whole speech discrimination band and precious few can.

The KEF B139 is now available again from Falcon acoustics. Its power has been beefed up to 200 watts, but is T/S parameters are the same. It is one of the best drivers of all time and was the basis of many of John Wrights TL designs at TDL. People just never part with those. The Volt dome midrange drivers are now available in the US. These are a range of drivers that can handle to speech discrimination band at power. The only other is the ATC but that is not available OEM.
I have not settled on a tweeter. I would like the Hiquphon 3/4" Tweeter but it's spendy. There is a dearth of good 3/4 inch tweeters, because of the dearth of good midrange drivers to mate to. A 3/4" dome or equivalent is essential to get the wide dispersion out to 10K at least. 1" domes become directional too soon.

So what I have been doodling with is a TL based on the KEF B139 and a Volt dome mid. I would make sure it was an easy drive and use the late Raymond Cooke's impedance correction techniques like I have in my family room speakers.

If you are interested you should bring over music you know well, and give those family room speaker a good listen.

I have options for building the cabinets.

It is about time that Audioholics had a true reference speaker, and one on the top line.

So if you want to take a leap of faith I'm ready.

I think that is a fine idea! Would the whole package be in my budget of $2K to $2.5k? Happy to have your expertise, because I'd likely create something terrible on my own. That's why I wouldn't do it on my own!

 

[TLS Guy]

I think that is a fine idea! Would the whole package be in my budget of $2K to $2.5k? Happy to have your expertise, because I'd likely create something terrible on my own. That's why I wouldn't do it on my own!

If you are really serious I will do the design. It will take a little time.

 

[Squishman]

If you are really serious I will do the design. It will take a little time.

So amazing of you to offer that. After thinking a bit, I am a little leary of going head first on a project like that. I wonder about the time commitment to do it since I still work full time. I love my ADS' so much, I may have found a 2-way set with 8" woofers. I am waitng for the seller to respond. If I can snare those, I'll buy them no matter what room/system I end up putting them in. Hopefully these will be up my alley for the living room.

 

[Squishman]

The ADS 570/2 seller just changed it to pending for me! Picking them up tomorrow evening. I think these are super clean too.

 

[Squishman]

I got the ADS L570/2's home. They look really nice. Cabs are an easy 9.5 or darn near a 10. The sound is very full and sounds like a bigger speaker. I played my favorite Doobie Brothers album first because the LP has a lot of percussion and great sounds to test them out. Now playing Johnny Cash's "Unchained" LP which has Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as his b/u band and "Rusty Cage" just played and my jaw just dropped! Goodness gracious, the guitar is so grungy. Better than my LS. I can say that they are exceeding what I was expecting. I'll have to get the height right, but that will wait until I sell the LS'. I paid only $280. Yowser. I think they are worth much more.

 

[Squishman]

The ADS grills have fabric inside the steel mesh. With the grills off, the speakers are fatiguing. With the grills on, that is diffused a bit, but still fatiguing though less so. My LS's are not fatiguing at all. So I guess that is a complaint I have with these. @Eppie mentioned to me that Kef's are smooth and not fatiguing. I hadn't yet even mentioned that issue with the ADS'. Anyways, it so happens that my buddy brought over a set of Kef Q60's. They are still here. One has a bad woofer. Worth getting repaired and use over the ADS' in case I decided to buy them? I need to hook them up again to see what's going on. Seems the ADS guys knew what they were doing with that grill, because it definitely diffuses it, but not quite enough. @TLS Guy, if I can't figure out what is happening with the Kef's, I wonder if I could bring them by for you to diagnose? Providing if you think it's be worthwhile with this particular model. They are KEF Q60 SP 3136.

 

[Squishman]

Well..... I hooked up the Kefs again. It was the gold-plated bands or links connecting the two sets of terminals for bi-amping. Yes, they were tight. I took them out and cleaned them up with a pencil eraser and now they work great. Still like to know Mark, how do these rank? They sound better than the ADS' I just bought.

 

[TLS Guy]

Well..... I hooked up the Kefs again. It was the gold-plated bands or links connecting the two sets of terminals for bi-amping. Yes, they were tight. I took them out and cleaned them up with a pencil eraser and now they work great. Still like to know Mark, how do these rank? They sound better than the ADS' I just bought.

Hi-Fi Sound used to handle ADS. I did not like them at all. I had them pegged in the unlistenable category. My late friend Phil also auditioned them as he was considering a purchase. He did not like them either.

The KEF UniQ drivers I have heard and like them. My SEAS drivers in my center speaker in the studio is very similar to the KEF UniQs as they make these drivers under license from KEF. So I suspect they are the best speakers you have at the moment. My SEAS drivers are 200 watt and there are two of them as there is a second driver for the diffraction loss. As you know I really like my center and it is certainly one of the very best speakers I have ever designed. A coaxial is really the optimal design for a center speaker. I have no doubt about that. The fact it is also a TL means their is not even the faintest trace of 'boxiness' and speech is incredibly natural with superior speech discrimination.

 

[Squishman]

Hi-Fi Sound used to handle ADS. I did not like them at all. I had them pegged in the unlistenable category. My late friend Phil also auditioned them as he was considering a purchase. He did not like them either.

The KEF UniQ drivers I have heard and like them. My SEAS drivers in my center speaker in the studio is very similar to the KEF UniQs as they make these drivers under license from KEF. So I suspect they are the best speakers you have at the moment. My SEAS drivers are 200 watt and there are two of them as there is a second driver for the diffraction loss. As you know I really like my center and it is certainly one of the very best speakers I have ever designed. A coaxial is really the optimal design for a center speaker. I have no doubt about that. The fact it is also a TL means their is not even the faintest trace of 'boxiness' and speech is incredibly natural with superior speech discrimination.

That's great! You played "Tears of a Clown" in mono from my Motown Greatest LP on that speaker. I bet I can sell the ADS' for what I paid. They seem to get a lot of praise on Youtube, for whatever that is worth. I do like my smaller L400's in the 2 channel room. They are up pretty high, so maybe that diffuses the harshness.

 

[Squishman]

Hi-Fi Sound used to handle ADS. I did not like them at all. I had them pegged in the unlistenable category. My late friend Phil also auditioned them as he was considering a purchase. He did not like them either.

The KEF UniQ drivers I have heard and like them. My SEAS drivers in my center speaker in the studio is very similar to the KEF UniQs as they make these drivers under license from KEF. So I suspect they are the best speakers you have at the moment. My SEAS drivers are 200 watt and there are two of them as there is a second driver for the diffraction loss. As you know I really like my center and it is certainly one of the very best speakers I have ever designed. A coaxial is really the optimal design for a center speaker. I have no doubt about that. The fact it is also a TL means their is not even the faintest trace of 'boxiness' and speech is incredibly natural with superior speech discrimination.

What is "TL"?

 

[TLS Guy]

What is "TL"?

It is a transmission line. They come in various flavors and I favor the damped aperiodic transmission lines. My AV room mains are TLs, and the rear backs all those are dual lines tuned a half an octave apart like the monitors at the famed former BBC Maida Vale studios. The center is a single TL. The in wall sub in my Great Room is a single TL. I have four of the amp cards as keepsakes out of those legendary Maida Vale studio monitors. My mains are an updated version of those. Those speakers were a collaborative project between Peter Walker of Quad, Raymond Cooke of KEF, Jim Rogers, of Rogers Audio and John Wright of TDL. They were active triamped speakers. I don't know of any system that gives you a more realistic and uncoloured bass.

 

[Squishman]

It is a transmission line. They come in various flavors and I favor the damped aperiodic transmission lines. My AV room mains are TLs, and the rear backs all those are dual lines tuned a half an octave apart like the monitors at the famed former BBC Maida Vale studios. The center is a single TL. The in wall sub in my Great Room is a single TL. I have four of the amp cards as keepsakes out of those legendary Maida Vale studio monitors. My mains are an updated version of those. Those speakers were a collaborative project between Peter Walker of Quad, Raymond Cooke of KEF, Jim Rogers, of Rogers Audio and John Wright of TDL. They were active triamped speakers. I don't know of any system that gives you a more realistic and uncoloured bass.

So as it turns out, he's not selling these Q60's. That was unexpected because I thought that is why he wanted me to hear them. There is a black set real cheap in Prior Lake. $200! I don't want black though. Thinking about them though. Another possibility once my LS sell is to buy new Q7 Metas. Huge step up obviously. Do those measure up in your opinion?

 

[mtrot]

So as it turns out, he's not selling these Q60's. That was unexpected because I thought that is why he wanted me to hear them. There is a black set real cheap in Prior Lake. $200! I don't want black though. Thinking about them though. Another possibility once my LS sell is to buy new Q7 Metas. Huge step up obviously. Do those measure up in your opinion?

I'm also looking at Q7 Meta or Martin Logan Motion Foundation F2. If you get the Q7 Meta, I'd be interested in your opinion of them.

 

[Squishman]

So, funny thing. My work buddy said he'd be happy with the black ones if they are as nice as his walnut ones. So if I bought the ones in Prior Lake, he'd take them and I keep his. Like I said, these do sound quite good and It'd be great to know @TLS Guy if you believe they can rival the Q7 Metas in any way. Probably every way, but your opinion has some weight to it. I imagine they have more bass than the Q60's, but I have the HSU sub. Such a great deal at only $200, I just wonder if they can rival the Q7 Metas.