I’m looking to buy myself a new stereo system and a set of speakers. Something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time now. Stopped by a store that purports themselves to cater towards audiophiles and talked speakers and amplifiers for a while and came away with a few suggestions that just about breaks my budget.
Are there any sound engineers or otherwise simply knowledgeable people about who might help me out with figuring out what I’m looking at here?
The requirements I asked for in the store was that I need the amplifier to be able to run at least 2 sets of speakers, so that I can have one set in the kitchen and another in my living room. It also needs to have a headphone jack in the front and inputs so that I can connect my computer and eventual TV I might purchase at a later date, optical might be nice but not absolutely necessary.
So here’s the set up that the store recommended me which might also help give you an idea of the budget I’m working with.
Secondary speakers I also looked at but didn’t like as much: B&W 606
The difference I could tell between the two was that the Dali speakers had a much more pleasant bass sound where the B&W sounded rather metallic and flat. But they had a slightly better width in the mid range, which made me unhappy with both speakers as I switched back and forth. I can’t afford to buy both and smash them together into a single great speaker though.
So I’m looking for opinions and advice if anyone has any to give.
Thank you.
So I finally managed to talk to the guy I told you about and he said that you either have pretty good taste or the audio technician guy in the store pointed you towards the good stuff!
And I even got reminded that I listened to DALI book shelves (cheaper than the Oberon 3) few years ago and I really liked them and that I was surprised that they were playing, because I thought it was the bigger floorstanders next to them on one audio convention. He pretty much confirmed that B&W in that price range (really low for their products) sound bland and “too real” for any modern person, so they shouldn’t be an actual possibility. The Dali ones you liked should be pretty darn good, but because this is the most popular design and price range for speakers for 90% of the world population… the choices are really vast so you just really need to sit down and listen a lot to be able to pick.
He can recommend those, because there’s pretty good reception for them in the last years and they actually probably half the price. And to not concern yourself with the size of the drivers in this day and age, because now it’s easy to make like 6 " drivers that go pretty low in the sound compared to like 20 years ago.
About the amplifier - should be really good, but if you want more direct sound and rely mainly on what the particular songs masterings and studios did you can check out the new Mission Cyrus ONE and it’s 2x100W:
But as you can see… they are as that simplistic on their “options” since … like they were founded as one of the best transistor amps brands.
Also you can check some AudioLab models if they are available there.
Unfortunately I confirmed you shouldn’t dare to connect 2 pairs of speakers to an transistor hi - fi amplifier at all. Even your old speakers being on 6 ohms - the same as the ones you are going for … this can lead to burning the amplifier, because you can get really low impedance or something … I’m not really good on the technical stuff to remember that . Three options here :
You need to disconnect / connect the ones you want to listen to every time - the simplest option.
You need to get a simple like switch, connector box or something like that… No idea the how they are called in english. Basically you plug the speakers in that thing and you plug it into the amplifier - should be available in every audio store, because that’s how they switch between like 10 pairs of speakers on the fly so you can hear them out. The ones for 2-3 pairs should be really cheap and probably won’t influence the sound that much.
You need to go for Hi-Fi receiver instead of an amplifier and for those in that price range he can mainly recommend those:
I particularly don’t like the sound of the most receivers I had the chance to listen to… but that might be just me . Hope this helps and cheers!
P.S. It’s good you are going for bookshelve type of speakers compared to floor standing ones where you need to pay almost triple the price to get something decent.
Back bass reflex - 30 cm + distance from the wall behind it!
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. Hope this helps and cheers!