[Doctacosmos]

Been around AVS forum for 8 years and only found about this website when I started looking for used speakers to buy.  Also planning on selling my speakers on here eventually.


 I personally can’t listen to any metal dome speakers without getting fatigued in 20 minutes so I’ve been looking at a few options. I have two svs pb2000 subs so just looking for bookshelves in the $1-2k range. Top of the list is rbh sv-61r , legacy studio hd, Salk speaker with ribbon or possibly Dynaudio but not sure about a soft dome tweeter as I’ve had them before and they were too veiled for me.  I’m a big natural timbre fan.  Essentially looking for whatever speaker will have the most detail and will scale the best.   Also for what it’s worth the kef r series always sounds hard to me.  Appreciate the time

[Phil A]

Welcome!  Explore all the sponsors who make bookshelves (e.g. Selah).

[FullRangeMan]

I personally can’t listen to any metal dome speakers without getting fatigued in 20 minutes so I’ve been looking at a few options.

Welcome aboad Doctacosmos
If you are sensible to ear fatigue SMT you would like a nice fullrange driver with no xover/filter in a proper enclosure if you have a small room.

[Doctacosmos]

Thanks for the recommendation on the full range driver are you possibly suggesting headphones?! Haha just kidding but as a long time reader of stereophile I’ve never seen a review of well measured speakers implementing full range drivers.   I do believe I’d be fine with an amt tweeter as I’ve listened to triton speakers and been fine.   I also liked a monitor audio gold series with a ribbon that was good too. 
Phil A I appreciate the suggestion of SELAH as I’ve never heard of them before but bookshelves are exactly what I’m going for or even a tower if in my budget.   I’m not too worried about extension.

[JLM]

What do you mean by 'scale'?  Personally I'm more interested in the mid-woofer as it handles the bulk of what we hear (6 octaves) than the tweeter. 

Is this mostly for audio or HT use?  (I see a center channel speaker.)  If HT is in the picture recommend higher efficiency/power capacity monitors (90 dB/w/m or higher and minimum 100 watts), which excludes most audio monitors.  HT oriented monitors are rather rare in your price range.  How many 'real' watts do you have available (all channels driven, 20-20,000Hz)?  Again if HT is involved I'd shy away from single driver speakers as most can't handle extreme power and lack the highs that it seems you're after.  You'll find that FRM is a single driver cult member.     I look for 6 inch or bigger woofers to provide mid-bass 'body'. 

I find that ribbon tweeters often exaggerate treble (probable due to designer 'showing off' the expensive driver).  My ears are old but soft domes work fine for me, especially when considering the extra cost of ribbons and thinking about where cost of other aspects of the speaker may have been cut.  I own Dynaudio and don't find the soft dome tweeter to be lacking.  Dynaudio has some very well respected soft domes (Esotar).  Regardless of brand, there are many high-end speaker manufacturers that use soft domes, so I wouldn't be quick to dismiss them.  Salk is not a good choice if you can't audition the particular model you're interested in since they sell commissioned speakers. 

Yes, with subwoofers there's no need to look at floor standing speakers.  Note that the rbh sv-61r is stated to have a 4.7" x 1" AMT (folded ribbon) soft dome tweeter (seemingly a complete paradox) and aluminum woofer (What? that'd bother me more than metal tweeters) and is only average efficiency.  The Legacy studio hd is an older design but appear to fit your bill much better, but where can you hear them?  Hearing for yourself, ideally at home is the best test for any speaker.

[JakeJ]

Hello and welcome to AC, Doctacosmos.

[dB Cooper]

Welcome to the sweet spot. I largely share your reaction to metal cone drivers. Polypropylene (and similar) and good ol' paper (still good if engineered right) seem to float my boat the best. Good luck with your search. Sounds like it may be time to go to an audio show....

[ArthurDent]

Greetings & Welcome to AC Doctacosmos     Good luck in your search. As regards Salk, you might contact Jim regarding folks in your area that would be willing to audition the model(s) you are interested in. The Salk extended family is pretty good in that regard.

[WGH]

Salk is not a good choice if you can't audition the particular model you're interested in since they sell commissioned speakers. 

But they are a good choice if you want a speaker with an excellent ribbon tweeter. Salk speakers with the RAAL tweeter never, ever exaggerate treble or get fatiguing. Actually, when you first listen to a Salk the highs sound a little soft, what is missing is the distortion of lesser tweeters. The clarity of the RAAL tweeter is addicting. Jim Salk is all about customer service, give him a call.

[FireGuy]

Welcome aboad Doctacosmos
If you are sensible to ear fatigue SMT you would like a nice fullrange driver with no xover/filter in a proper enclosure if you have a small room.

Doctacosmos - Don't overlook Omega.  If you're not too concerned about macro dynamics, these x-over less, full range speakers are organic sounding and wonderfully balanced top to bottom.  Plus, you don't need a mega watt (typically expensive) amp to drive them.
My .02!

[FullRangeMan]

Thanks for the recommendation on the full range driver are you possibly suggesting headphones?! Haha just kidding but as a long time reader of stereophile I’ve never seen a review of well measured speakers implementing full range drivers.   I do believe I’d be fine with an amt tweeter as I’ve listened to triton speakers and been fine.   I also liked a monitor audio gold series with a ribbon that was good too. 
Phil A I appreciate the suggestion of SELAH as I’ve never heard of them before but bookshelves are exactly what I’m going for or even a tower if in my budget.   I’m not too worried about extension.

Not sure if I understand the implications of your post.
2&3 ways loudspeakers usually measured well on freq chart even treble flat but not in reactance/capacitance phase music signal and what they offer to you: 2D image and auditory fatigue.

With Stereophile approved loudspeakers you will continue to have ear fatigue ad aeternum, they will never tell you the origin of this phenomenon since it evidence against his loudspeakers advertisers.

FR loudspeakers with strong treble response are very common on the assembled loudspeaker market, builders have no idea how to mitigate the problem by passive ways, then they add a Zobel or notch filter before the FR driver and sell the speaker as ''passive single driver'' as it does not use DSP(actice) and audio magazines bless.

[Doctacosmos]

Home theater is definitely in the mix.  I plan to get a parasound amp or a nice class d amp in the near future too. The rbh website is messed up and says soft dome because of the previous series but it is an aluminum mid with amt tweeter.  I’ve been seriously considering them because I can get one of their older elevated soft dome tweeters centers channels for a great price which has two working phase plug midrange.  I was trying to keep my initial post from being too drawn out but there’s seems to be some pretty useful and informative folks willing to help which I greatly appreciate!   
I simply can’t go metal dome and won’t. Aside from the mains I still need all surround, rear and height channels. They need to be able to use a bracket as in wall are out of the question too.  Thinking soft dome for these or some Martin Logan amt tweeter speakers I found for $110 a pair.
As for mains, This guy gets me

Welcome to the sweet spot. I largely share your reaction to metal cone drivers. Polypropylene (and similar) and good ol' paper (still good if engineered right) seem to float my boat the best. Good luck with your search. Sounds like it may be time to go to an audio show....

. But I also want a “hard” sound if needed for music like electronic that’s why I’m considering splurging and getting Dynaudio special forty.   On a video of theirs they mentioned something that I’m a huge believer in and it’s that all drivers carry over a certain sound.  If you scratch them they will have a unique texture that carries over to the sound.  Herb Reichert of stereophile believes it too.  Dynaudio believes they’ve come up with a transparent material free of said artifacts which intrigued me.   However I also have a problem that sandy gross also mentions that I’ hear it every time and it’s that dome tweeters spit at you.  So I’m at a standstill.   A show might be a good thing for me but I cseriously have to be done after this still rather money constricted build. 

[Doctacosmos]

Also as far as “scale up” goes what I mean is let’s say speaker A and speaker b cost the same and driven out of a nice system will sound the same but add some higher end gear down the road speaker A might continue to sound the same but speaker b will morph and merit the higher end gear.

[Doctacosmos]

Figure it wouldn’t hurt to post a few songs I like listening to.
Yo-yo ma cloverfoot reel.  At 3 minutes in a beautiful violin comes in and sings and gets pictchy but beautiful resonances in here make me so happy.
Ludovico Einaudi Underwood.  Beautiful piano with deep decays can come off as ringing with metal dome but would make me cry with my Sonus Faber Venere 3.0.    At 1:45 like the previous song a violin comes in.   Here’s where I weary about a soft dome tweeter.  This needs to not be veiled to carry over the natural timbre of the instrument.
All or nothing/ Stac /album, turn that light out.  Beautiful female vocals with a lot of upper midrange air. Needs tight midbass punch and glimmery strings need to sound crystalline.
Coming home / Leon Bridges.  Rhythm and pure enjoyment.  Favorite bedtime song.
Anything Norah Jones.  Her voice needs to be organic enough for me to believe she’s real because I love her and wishful thinking stuff.
Plenty more demo stuff such as male vocals not sounding congested or crossover awkwardness in vocals but this should suffice    Appreciate it again you guys!

[WGH]

As you explore speaker options, take a look at Philharmonic Audio http://www.philharmonicaudio.com/
Dennis Murphy makes affordable high end speakers for stereo and home theater, his speakers use RAAL tweeters. The Philharmonic sound is similar to Salk's because Dennis has designed the crossovers in many Salk speakers including the Salk Sound Song Tower and HT2 lines.

[charmerci]

In the few recent opportunities in which I've listened to new components, I'm beginning to highly suspect in the drive for more accurate high frequency clarity that the mainly older audio designers (with their reduced ability to hear high frequencies) are building into the electronics this HF harshness. So unless you can spend kilobucks - maybe? - the choice is between a veiled high end or hf harshness.  (This of course, depends on your hearing.

What are your receiver and your speakers? Are they new or old?

[timind]

Welcome to A/C.

I was in the same "can't listen to metal tweeter" camp years ago. Then I bought a pair of Revel M20 speakers with a metal dome tweeter. Those speakers changed my mind and I left the camp. As for Dynaudio, I've owned a few models topping out with the Contour 1.3SE. The only model I felt I could live with long term was the Focus 110. The 1.3SE was absolutely my least favorite, I just kept turning them down, they were so irritating.

[Bob Stark]

Doctacosmos,

I've got to tell you about a speaker company that is returning to the business but will be much improved in their ability to get the product out on time.  Aether Audio with Bob Smith at the head is going to be selling their awesome speakers once again.  I was just at Bob's house for the second time in a couple months.  He just did my Nuforce Ref 9 SE V3 mono amps with his Level 3 upgrades.  When he was done, I got to hear the rough version of the Aether S-8 speakers.  In a monitor about 2 cubic feet in volume, the dynamics, bass and right up through the highs were lucid, transparent, DYNAMIC as all get out, and they could play at volumes that would make most any high end speaker wilt, and give up.  These do not.  They have zero listener fatigue even at ridiculous volume levels.  They NEVER break up.  When I was there the last time before Thanksgiving, I got to listen to his monitors that were a bit different with a larger carved wood waveguide and 7" woofers on both the top and bottom.  The same was true of the capacity at any level.  Bob Smith was also the designer and builder of SP Tech Timepiece speakers.  Read ANY review online and it will peak your interest.  He's going to be reintroducing the Spirit 1, a 17"H  10" W  14.5" D monitor that has a 7" woofer, tweeter with the elliptical waveguide that allows such phenomenal power at all frequencies.  The bass on these is even better than what I heard at Bob's house--much better definition, deeper, but with slightly less 3 db than the dual woofer speakers.  I played some serious bass cuts with power--Marcus Miller, and cuts that have beautiful singers such as Eva Cassidy and they performed at a very high rate.  He will be selling these at somewhere around $2000 for a pair. I own THE PAIR of VMPS RM40 BCSE w/MLS cabinets speakers and they won't scale volume as well as the little Aether Audio speakers.  The RM40's do sound fabulous,  however.   They were THE pair Bound For Sound's Marty DeWulf used as his reference speaker for few couple years until he couldn't move the 260 lb. beasts anymore.  Other than being mighty impressed with Bob's design, I have nothing to do with the company.  Bob's speakers will make anyone with large floor standers think hard and long about downsizing, but not on the quality of the music.

I was once a demonstrator for VMPS speakers because I asked Brian Cheney if he needed a demo dude which he did.  I was and am still very impressed with the VMPS sound.  This is a big, full range speaker with tremendous clarity, and I'm here telling you that I could live happily with Bob's small monitors and in some ways, it would be an upgrade.

Bob

[Doctacosmos]

Hey guys appreciate the feedback I throughly enjoyed reading each response.   I got a great deal on some RBH SV-61S and matching center which will be upgradable to the phase cone mid and AMT tweeter if I so choose to upgrade.  I just really wanted a quality softdome or amt for cheap but again it needed to be quality and I’ve done enough research to see they are bang for your buck company.  However I chose this system for my home theater.  I’ll still be searching for speakers once I sell my KEF r300.   I’m slso going to be buying a rogue audio Cronus magnus 2 amplifier from him and I will be sourcing with a Denon x4400 receiver for home theater and a chord Hugo2 and peachtree portable dac/headphone amp.
So far I like the idea behind a planar or ribbon tweeter and some type of organic like material for midrange.   
I know it was only a YouTube video but I saw a video of a zu audio showcase with a peachtree integrated and the male vocals coming out sounded like what I’m trying to achieve.   However the highs came in and I could hear it plain as day the tweeter, while detailed, splashed out so much metal.  Sounds so artificial to me.   But the naturalness of the midrange seemed to be soooo good.

[Doctacosmos]

Oh also considering Selah