Is Jon Paul still around?
My ears were buzzing!
About 2/3 of my listening is to music. While I trust the ST's are exquisite, I don't want to feel "remorse" that I didn't just go for it. Is Jon Paul still around? He had a small space filled with Salk speakers. I am curious how he felt about the SS8's in his small space after owning them for awhile...
In case you haven't seen it, here's something I wrote to someone facing a similar decision where I also quote an email from Jim to me about the same subject:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=115294.msg1205135#msg1205135I still feel the same now as I did when I wrote that post.
I had
SongSeries speakers in the small room in my condo for about a year and a half before I
added the SS8s as mains, and I lived with those in the same room for almost exactly a year before I moved and had to put all my speakers in storage for 9 months. I'm now in a bigger but still relatively small room in a house, and have lived with the same speakers in the new space for about 6 months now.
The short version of my opinion is that I do not believe (at all) that the SS8s are too much speaker for a small room, but I do believe that you will probably not get the full benefit of them in a space that small and that, consequently, they may be overkill.
Put another way: There was an obvious improvement upgrading from the SongTowers as my main speakers to the SS8s, but I don't believe that it was nearly as big of an improvement as I would have noticed if I had had them in a better (bigger) space. I have never regretted buying the SS8s (except maybe when I had to move them down from the 3rd floor condo
) and I honestly don't think you would regret them either, but I also honestly don't think you would regret the Veracity HTs. (If something happened to my SS8s I could go back to the SongTowers or the SongBirds I have as mains and still listen with a smile on my face.)
One thing I would absolutely recommend would be room treatments. I find that I don't have nearly the "golden ears" that most people in this hobby have, and I often can't tell any difference (good or bad) between things like cables, connections, and even amps (sorry
). Because of this, before I had any room treatments I wondered whether it would be worth it to get any, or whether I would end up with oversized and overpriced pillows on the wall. Now that I can speak from experience, though, I would
definitely recommend them, especially in a small room like you have.
Also, you would definitely not need a subwoofer with SS8s. I'm not saying not to get one if you want (I have one, and you may prefer the flexibility to move it around based on your room independently of the mains), but you will not need one, especially for music. When I had SongTowers as mains I could never make up my mind whether I preferred music with or without the subwoofer helping, but with SS8s it's pretty clear that there's no need of a sub. I still have it for movies and crossover my other speakers to it, but the SS8s are fine as they are.
One other thing to consider with a small room (this is maybe obvious to most people, but it wasn't to me): To really get the FULL EXPERIENCE with speakers you have to play them loud. Not necessarily rattle-the-neighbors'-windows loud, but louder than you would have them on while being able to have a comfortable conversation with someone. Now that I'm in a house instead of a condo I can turn up the volume without worrying about disturbing anyone below me, and it starts to make some of the strengths of the SS8 clearer. With that being said, I find that my default volume when I'm not necessarily "critically" listening but I just want to relax while listening to music that I enjoy tends to be softer, and I think some of this is because my room (even now) is on the smaller side. If you like to crank things to 11 (and maybe you do as a drummer
) then disregard this, but if you think that, like me, you might usually have things at a more moderate level that could be another reason to consider going with something cheaper.
My advice, if you care, is this: If the price isn't an issue (and it sounds like it isn't from your most recent post), get the SS8s. They are awesome, and I think you'll be happy with them regardless of your room situation. If the price is more than you want to spend, though, I honestly don't think you would be disappointed with the Veracity STs.
Let me know if you have any more specific questions about my experiences that I could answer, and good luck making your decision!
