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Greetings and salultations everyone!
I have the upgrade itch after 13 years of not buying anything for my audio system (with the exception of a recent denon receiver with hdmi). I would like to DIY my next set of speakers and am in sore need of input as to what to go ahead and build. I much prefer to spend money on good speakers that will last decades and not electronics that will be outdated in 3-5 years.
Current setup:
Speakers: Energy C-5 towers. I enjoy the solid and tight bass and the top end isn’t bad at all. Matching center and surrounds.
Sub: DIY sub with 15 inch exodus audio driver (big xmax) in vast sealed cabinet with 500W plate amp.
Use: 50% stereo for music* and 50% home theater, if watching TV series on netflix/amazon can be called that. We rarely watch movies.
*The music I listen to is mainly extreme metal (guitar and drum driven but with quite a significant orchestral component – see latest albums from Ne Obliviscaris, Septicflesh, Mesarthim) – no judgment please, Nora Jones, Diana Krall etc just don’t do it for me!
Alas, this genre suffers greatly from compression, with most of my favorite albums rated 7/8 on the loudness-wars.com scale. I don’t listen to music at high volumes. Mostly about 50dB when humans are in the house with me. 65 dB or so when no-one else is around and I’m in that mood.
Source: iphone 6, raspberry pi (with hifiberry pro dac). I stream from amazon music mostly from the iphone6 headphone out, I find this gives me a great balance of music availability and good quality. I feed this into my new denon receiver (now with audyssey multEQ xt32). I’m happy with the sound – iphone 6’s have good dacs – see audiosciencereview.com for measurements. I am unsure if upgrading to a “streaming” cambridge audio, nad or arcam device would result in much audible improvement.
Needed in new speakers:
Given my musical proclivities strong, accurate mids would be important and accurate, fast bass.
Budget: $1300 or so. Lower is better
Possible Builds:
Jim and Curt’s Anthology's
I am looking at the Anthology's as I’ve been lusting after the statements for 10+ years now. However, the Anthology's seem to do better with poorly produced music, presumably as they’re somewhat less detailed than the statements/statement II’s – per a recommendation from Jim (IIRC) in this forum. I also saw that another anthology builder (I’ve read most of the build threads) liked music similar to my tastes (Nightwish was mentioned) and was impressed. Additionally Curt is quoted as saying “I could easily spend the rest of my days listening to the Anthology's as my main speakers” on the listening impressions page of the anthology section at speakerdesignworks dot com. Sounds good to me! (Apologies for my puns). They, however, seem to need a large-ish room with 1.5 feet (18 inches) or so to the back wall and to the sides also. While large they seem to have a good WAF. I can manage the space requirements as this time but worry about future homes. European living rooms can be small compared to those in the US.
Seigfried Linkwitz LXmini’s:
Seems like a really interesting speaker. Seigfried Linkwitz seemed to think of them as reference speakers which speaks volumes. They seem to do well in small-mid sized rooms and the FR curve indicates that they seem to have mids and bass well covered down to 50/45hz but I do worry that they won’t do as well as the Anthologies for my kind of music – given Jim’s description of the anthology’s open backed mids. Off axis response seems less amazing than the anthologies but not bad at all, just not as good. Two more cons I can think of is that I’d have to get 4 channels of amplification to drive these and also I’d be reliant on the miniDSP unit not dying. My limited woodworking and cabinet finishing “skills” would not be tested to the max here and I think I’d save ~$300 or so compared to the Anthology’s, even with the amp purchase (budget of $400 for used rotel/adcom amp(s) or for the new emotiva 5 channel amp).
Are there any other speakers I should be looking at?
Thanks for reading this far. Thoughts, suggestions, advice are all very welcome!
I have the upgrade itch after 13 years of not buying anything for my audio system (with the exception of a recent denon receiver with hdmi). I would like to DIY my next set of speakers and am in sore need of input as to what to go ahead and build. I much prefer to spend money on good speakers that will last decades and not electronics that will be outdated in 3-5 years.
Current setup:
Speakers: Energy C-5 towers. I enjoy the solid and tight bass and the top end isn’t bad at all. Matching center and surrounds.
Sub: DIY sub with 15 inch exodus audio driver (big xmax) in vast sealed cabinet with 500W plate amp.
Use: 50% stereo for music* and 50% home theater, if watching TV series on netflix/amazon can be called that. We rarely watch movies.
*The music I listen to is mainly extreme metal (guitar and drum driven but with quite a significant orchestral component – see latest albums from Ne Obliviscaris, Septicflesh, Mesarthim) – no judgment please, Nora Jones, Diana Krall etc just don’t do it for me!
Alas, this genre suffers greatly from compression, with most of my favorite albums rated 7/8 on the loudness-wars.com scale. I don’t listen to music at high volumes. Mostly about 50dB when humans are in the house with me. 65 dB or so when no-one else is around and I’m in that mood.Source: iphone 6, raspberry pi (with hifiberry pro dac). I stream from amazon music mostly from the iphone6 headphone out, I find this gives me a great balance of music availability and good quality. I feed this into my new denon receiver (now with audyssey multEQ xt32). I’m happy with the sound – iphone 6’s have good dacs – see audiosciencereview.com for measurements. I am unsure if upgrading to a “streaming” cambridge audio, nad or arcam device would result in much audible improvement.
Needed in new speakers:
Given my musical proclivities strong, accurate mids would be important and accurate, fast bass.
Budget: $1300 or so. Lower is better
Possible Builds:
Jim and Curt’s Anthology's
I am looking at the Anthology's as I’ve been lusting after the statements for 10+ years now. However, the Anthology's seem to do better with poorly produced music, presumably as they’re somewhat less detailed than the statements/statement II’s – per a recommendation from Jim (IIRC) in this forum. I also saw that another anthology builder (I’ve read most of the build threads) liked music similar to my tastes (Nightwish was mentioned) and was impressed. Additionally Curt is quoted as saying “I could easily spend the rest of my days listening to the Anthology's as my main speakers” on the listening impressions page of the anthology section at speakerdesignworks dot com. Sounds good to me! (Apologies for my puns). They, however, seem to need a large-ish room with 1.5 feet (18 inches) or so to the back wall and to the sides also. While large they seem to have a good WAF. I can manage the space requirements as this time but worry about future homes. European living rooms can be small compared to those in the US.
Seigfried Linkwitz LXmini’s:
Seems like a really interesting speaker. Seigfried Linkwitz seemed to think of them as reference speakers which speaks volumes. They seem to do well in small-mid sized rooms and the FR curve indicates that they seem to have mids and bass well covered down to 50/45hz but I do worry that they won’t do as well as the Anthologies for my kind of music – given Jim’s description of the anthology’s open backed mids. Off axis response seems less amazing than the anthologies but not bad at all, just not as good. Two more cons I can think of is that I’d have to get 4 channels of amplification to drive these and also I’d be reliant on the miniDSP unit not dying. My limited woodworking and cabinet finishing “skills” would not be tested to the max here and I think I’d save ~$300 or so compared to the Anthology’s, even with the amp purchase (budget of $400 for used rotel/adcom amp(s) or for the new emotiva 5 channel amp).
Are there any other speakers I should be looking at?
Thanks for reading this far. Thoughts, suggestions, advice are all very welcome!
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