I like your thinking, Scott. Very nice setup and something I will have to look into. Read your review of the Epiphony and it sounds like a heck of a nice monitor. Out of curiosity, what amps are you driving them with? I see they are tubes and with the spl's you are talking about, I assume they are a fairly high wattage?
I think folks have been reading my post wrong. I have a small (14' x 18') living room and don't want a massive speaker to blow me out of it. I like to listen to all kinds of music, but wh ...
Well, the amps are highly modified Radii's. Right now I'm running KT88's in them. Guessing, they are putting out 90-100 watts.
Rob, I wouldn't call it 'brown note' bass but more 'brown out' bass. In a previous version of this setup, I had some incandescent lights on the same circuit (before I ran a dedicated line). When you would really start cranking this puppy, the lights would dim with the heavy bass notes.
It's not one-note bass like you might think, I've measured these things and they are darned near flat to about 15Hz (using a Sencore SP295). They're -6dB at about 10Hz. I've got a bit of a peak at between 25 and 30 Hz but that s room gain (my room is 38' long).
The Shivas are pretty darned articulate when you set them up right. Not as good as some but on the other hand, not as bad as others I've played with. They are a darn good performer for the price and extremely box friendly. Corner loading and the triangluar cabinet helps tons too. I don't have any issues with integration at all. The transition is seamless. Sure, when I crank the bass up on some rock it can get a little squirelly at times but it's far better than not being able to listen that music at all.
MCA, you could do this with a standard pair of 3 way speakers too. Just remove the low to mid pass XO components (and the matching mid to low XO parts) and use the active XO and separate amp to drive the woofer. One thing though, a standard, small midrange driver won't cut it. You'll have to find something that will do 100Hz without any issues. It should have at least 6-8mm of xmax. It will need it when you are cranking it.
What you can expect.......
- Tons more headroom (or aparent power)
- Loads more dynamics
- You should find more detail too removing the lossey XO from the speakers.
- Another artifact will be more refinement and openess of your mid/tweeter amp because you have just releived it of the bass duties.
- Finally, the ability to play nearly every disc (black or shiney) in your collection and that is what this hobby is all about...... non-exclusive enjoyment of music.
Try it, you'll like it! (honest)
