[lonewolfny42]

And your budget would be....2K to 4K ?

 Stand monitor or floor stander is good.....11 x 18 room....Dodd Monoblocs,  Mantissa Pre Amp,  Exemplar 5910 player....

If he is asking about Sason speakers, one should assume a much higher budget since the Sason speakers are selling for $7900 + another $700 for the stands.

George

Your right George ....I was thinking the speakers that Mike has now...in the 4K range....

[bluemike]

hi mike,

your speakers look really nice.  sorry if my initial post was the least bit offensive...

[ted_b]

And actually the Sason expert (and chief designer) is Steve (Rothemel) more than Robert.  Steve drove my pair out to set up, and spent the evening with us. 

Oh, there's one other thing about the Sasons......they are the most "not-ready for prime time speaker" when they are bought new and installed.  They require a ridiculous amount of break-in....really, a semi-absurd amount of time.  I can't tell you how average to poor they sound initially, then actually get worse before they get better.  I ran them almost 500 hrs, realizing that RSA's 45 day "trial" was beginning to feel like way too little time.  It was around day 35 that they hit a wall, a sort of audio transducer gestalt.  All of a sudden everything synched up, the drivers reached new highs and lows, and the speakers vanished before my eyes.  Whew!  Buyers remorse turned into buyer exhiliration.  The speakers became value leaders in one fell swoop.  Whew...that was close.  I almost gave them back.

[lonewolfny42]

Mike....
Did you happen to listen to any of these mentioned in a past thread ? Link...

[bluemike]

Mike....
Did you happen to listen to any of these mentioned in a past thread ? Link...

As a matter of fact I did. Nothing out there that has wowed me as of yet

The Gershman 828 Gap were great sounding  but  far to large for my listening area.
I will be auditioning the Jm Labs next week 

[lonewolfny42]

Thats the problem with a small room (mine also)....so many choices are too big for the room....

The Gershman 828 Gap was great but there far to large for my listening area

[bluemike]

Any other speakers I should be focusing on ?

[doug s.]

i have always liked the jm labs speakers.  i have a pair of meret re's, that use the focal inwerted dome tweet w/an eton midwoofer (larger edition of the midwoofer that gr-research used in their diluceo & criterion) - wery nice...  the re's were designed by (and are wery similar to) the artemos eos speaker, another excellent stand-mount, imo...  both are no longer made, & only awailable on the used market...  a similar design that might be worth inwestigating would be the von gaylord legend mkll, at $4k retail:

http://www.vongaylordaudio.com/product_html/prospeakers.htm


doug s.

Mike....
Did you happen to listen to any of these mentioned in a past thread ? Link...

As a matter of fact I did. Nothing out there that has wowed me as of yet

The Gershman 828 Gap were great sounding  but  far to large for my listening area.
I will be auditioning the Jm Labs next week 

[lonewolfny42]

Any other speakers I should be focusing on ?

Well....you have the speaker manufactures on AC...some fine products.

Also...two companies that look interesting...with good products...Mark & Daniel......and ....Devore Fidelity....

[doug s.]

you might also wanna look for a used pair of piega p5mkll ltd's - these are what i am presently listening to, that compelled me to put my diapason's on the market.  a pic is shown in my diapason ad.  while not monitors, they have a wery small footprint, and are only 7" wide.

and, i would also check out the coincident research victory or victory-ll  i own a pair of the earlier victory's, & these are also fantastic speakers.  i will have a difficult decision making a final choice between keeping the victory's, or the piega's.  not sure i can afford to keep 'em both.  the victory's are cool, cuz, at 97db-efficient & 14 ohms, they work great w/low powered single-ended tube amplification...  mount 'em on 10" stands to get the best out of 'em.  there's a used pair of victory-ll's f/s on a-gon right now for $2500:

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?spkrfull&1192075257


there's also a used pair of earlier victory's on agon f/s at the same price, but why not get the most recent iteration?  the earlier one is the lighter color, which i happen to prefer; mebbe the seller will take less, as it costs ~$1000 to get the speaker upgraded at the factory...

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?spkrfull&1192754108

doug s.

[bluemike]

Some great suggestions thus far

Thanks, I will research these further 

[lonewolfny42]

For something different...and expensive...and which I have heard (sounded good just a few weeks ago)....Proclaim Audioworks DMT-100......its very adjustable.

[Robert C. Schult]

Hi BLuemike.

RSAD's music room, which we use for demo'ing the Sason, is almost identical to yours. Our room is 11.5' x 18.5' with an 7.5' ceiling. Since it's a dedicated room, we've had them all over the place in that room - long wall, short wall, two feet from the back wall, etc., etc.

When optimized in each of those locations they performed great - beyond what one might expect but, they will change your paradigm when brought out in the room.

So, to answer the question "will they work in that small of a room", the answer is yes. For what it's worth, contrary to what one might perceive, they will also work in even smaller rooms when good care is given. We have a couple of clients who have rooms even smaller. The Sason Ltd ousted Talon, Avalon and Focus Audio in those rooms.

As for 2-4 feet from the back wall vs. out into the room, the Sasons are likely to smoke anything out there in an "apples to apples" set up comparison.

One other thing that may be of interest: We have done a few upgrades, most of which are also in Ted's Sasons but one specifically that we recently have made available. See the image below.



The shorter version has a couple of advantages. Technically, they maintain the same internal volume the woofer sees but we've taken the isolated sub compartment dedicated for the X-Over out of the cabinet and have moved it to the large back column of the speaker stand. In the older style, the X-Over was in it's own isolated compartment except for one coil - it was too large to fit in the X-Over compartment and still accomplish what we wanted so it was placed in the internal volume of the Sason. Neither Steve nor I were ever completely happy with that. So now, the entire X-Over is in the Stand's back column and the entire X-Over is isolated from everything that's going on in the internal volume of the speaker. Aesthetically and sonically, the Sason maintains it's extensions, balance and fullness from top to bottom and is visually less intrusive. In our nearfield set up, the Sason is the only speaker I have ever heard that's just not there sonically - even when not sitting in the "sweet spot" and even with the larger version which we still use in the music room. We sit only about 6.5' to 7' from the speakers. Maybe it's a visual thing but with the smaller version we find ourselves even more connected to the music - always our goal.

Do you live so far away that a couple of day visit wouldn't work out? You're invited during the week or a weekend. We have a guest room so we would be happy to put you up if that helps.

Hope this helps a bit Bluemike. Let me know if you have other questions. Happy to help best we can.

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD

[doug s.]

Some great suggestions thus far

Thanks, I will research these further 

i was also gonna suggest the silverline 17.5's, but since robert has posted his room size, i bet you will have no problems at all w/the sason's in your room.   

doug s.

[Robert C. Schult]

Thanks for that Doug. You're right

BTW Bluemike...

...My music tastes are pretty much across the board. Would the sason sound good with all genre of music ?

Yes. What the Sason won't hide or "pretty up" though is bad recordings. My experience tells me a lot of speakers "pretty up" a lot of mediocre recordings to make the speaker more "sellable" I suppose but they tend to innappropriately editorialize the care and beauty of very good recordings too - not good in my view. The Sasons do neither. Through the Sasons, poor recordings of good music will probably piss you off (they do me anyway...), decent recordings are enjoyable without fatigue and excellent recordings are simply magical. All instructional but sometimes it can be a difficult lesson. I'll take the difficult lessons that come with the magic.

LOL!...Anymore I buy almost all my music from labels I trust have excellent fidelity. These include Chesky, Turtle Records, Telarc, Well Tempered, Naim, MA Recordings, Sony Masterworks, Harmonia Mundi and others I can't recall right now. All these labels have excellent music dispersed throughout their catalog that will meet a wide variety of tastes.

I used to like mostly Rock and Progressive Jazz. Rock 'cause I could easily grasp the rhythm and melody, Prog. Jazz because it was more intellectually interesting. Never could connect with traditional Jazz or the more Classical oriented genres. Since assembling a good system and using speakers that are exceptionally communicative, I've fallen in love with just about everything - Chamber, Indie, Orchestral, Choir, and whatever the hell The Bad Plus is doing.   So, I think, like you, my appreciation for different music genres is all over the place where it wasn't before.

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD

[Robert C. Schult]

Hi Pat!

hi Robert, any cost savings with the shorter set???? always lookin' to shave & save

No. It's actually made the Sasons more difficult and time consuming to build without compromising other issues I had concerns with. If anything, there's going to be a slight direct price increase in the not too distant future. If we can avoid the increase, we will. Until these things are heard they're already a tough sell: $8575.00 (includes the stands which are now absolutely mandatory) for a two way! I'm thinking an increase in price won't help. LOL!

You know, I know $8575.00 is a lot of scratch but I should say this: We'll put the Sason Ltd up against anything out there up to around $22,000.00. By that standard, the Saons are truly an incredible value. How do we do that? We don't (and really can't afford to) paste ourselves all over the rags creating more image than substance and we just don't have the overhead a lot manufacturers have. Because of my obsession for doing things right or at least as best as I can and my love for music, I'm more interested in our products having substance. Image is secondary to me and I suppose that hurts us a bit but you know, I really don't care too much. I sleep pretty well at night (or when ever the heck I sleep) knowing that folks who purchase from us are buying performance instead of an expensive marketing campaign that "Oh, BTW...that comes with product".

Nothing wrong with marketing and all I suppose and nothing wrong with no marketing. Just depends on what a business owner's values are, what the business is trying to accomplish and whether or not the market finds value in what you offer.

Gees! Where the hell did I go...LOL!

Pat, no. 

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD

[Geardaddy]

Another consideration would be the Delta Summits from Inuitive Design.  They are a stand mounted, two-way monitor design like the Sason's.  Their bottom end is very good and I only have them 3 feet from the backwall due to the logistics of my space.  My wife has shoehorned me into my office in the 1940s farmhouse we are renting.  Nonetheless, they sound astonishingly good and are worth your consideration.  I have not heard the Sason's but from what I have heard from people I trust, they are also stellar speakers that incorporate a lot of cutting edge, proprietary technology like the Summits.