General Speaker Advice and Recommendations

How big is your listening area for the X5s? How far out from the wall have you placed them? My room is small-to-medium sized (12' x 16') and the speakers have to go along the long wall; I'm thinking the X5s might just be too big. Kinda wish Clayton would make a smaller X series that still has the powered woofer.

I read this X5 impression a while back from a tube amp designer (Don Sachs? I had not heard of him previously) which got me really interested in them: https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=171745.0

I'd be interested to hear more about your experience with the X5s.

 

I have the F127 dave enabled from planet 10 in a Fonken Prime cabinet, they are breaking in and sound amazing, except the high end at times can be a little brittle. They need more break-in and I was wondering if anyone had used a resistor or cap to tame the high end on this driver?

 

@Josh Schor - if you have them toed in, turn them straight forward. Maybe a little outward if it’s still too hot

 

thanks I will try that. I am honestly shocked how good these drivers sound in these cabinets. My reference is Reference 3a decapo I do not have a set now but have owed 3 sets and sold them all, my bad

 

My room is 15X20 and feel it's a good size for the X5s. They're along the short wall and I currently pull it about 4 ft from the front wall. There's no strict rule about room size though since I've read some people went with the X3s for my sized room. You can always give Clayton a call...he is very helpful and forthcoming with suggestions if you can a hold of him.

I've had them for a couple of months now and have mainly focused on burning them in. At ~100 hrs, they sound significantly better than when I first got them. I even wondered whether I'd have to return them at first listen. I haven't done any room treatments yet and haven't played too much around positioning them and even then, they sound really really good. You can play something like Norah Jones, Come Away with Me, and you hear her vocals very prominently, clearly with sweetness but not at all bright. You still hear all instruments with her singing, blended together very well but every note is still distinct, airy, and not smeared or lost. Because they're properly balanced, you just enjoy listening and do not get distracted by anything being out of place. I also find that I enjoy listening to all different types of music, especially large orchestral music where the big stage and transparency suck you into just listening.

I also really like how they look, which was important to get my wife to agree on getting them, but I never actually notice them when listening. I never feel that music is coming from one speaker or the other and really like that they disappear in that way.

Lastly, I can play them with a 4 watt tube amp or a 200 watt solid state and I can enjoy them both and I never feel like there's a limitation with either amp, just different...lots of flexibility with these speakers. I'm not sure how much of this is due to OB design or Clayton's implementation or whether really good box speakers provide can provide a similar sound but I don't have any real desire to look further and answer those questions - which feels like a good place to be.

 

@foo_me - Awesome writeup (thanks!), and confirms a lot of what I have read about these speakers. I have been noodling about new speakers for a couple of months; $7k is a lot for me, but I think it's worth sticking with what I have until I can afford to make the jump to the X5.

 

What changes in the sound do you hear between those two amps?

 

On the solid state (200 watts/8ohms Magnus Audio MA-400), sound is very dynamic with a visceral impact and lots of slam. It's hard hitting and great for rock music.
On tube (4 watts/8 ohms Whammerdyne DAA-3 2A3 tubes), equally dynamic but what you discover is that the sound on the solid state was somewhat 2-D and the tubes provide an additional layer of depth that makes the music noticeably more holographic. Not as hard hitting but you also gain more subtlety and nuance to the music that grabs your attention and gives you more of an emotional connection to what you are listening to, especially vocals.

I listen to music but also do work listening to the solid state amp but it's harder to work or multi-task with the tube amp. I like and use both depending upon circumstances.

 

Thank you Marv, now I need someone to tell me how to do this and what each of the pieces are. Anyone out there that can help with this?

 

Hello, nice to see this place still as active as ever. I'm looking to get an idiot-proof inoffensive speaker setup that will be hooked up to a living room TV. It also needs to friendly for an upstairs condo (i.e. no sub), I don't want to make enemies with my neighbors. I will probably be listening at low to moderate volume levels. Right now I think the max I could bring myself to spend is ~$1500 give or take a few hundred. If that isn't enough I'm willing to settle for the least terrible el cheapo setup until I can more comfortably afford something worthwhile.

Right now my TV is hooked up to a Modi 3 and the 10+ years old M-Audio AV40s taken from my desktop setup. I had hoped to settle for a modestly priced soundbar for convenience, but the usual stuff at the big box stores IMO was underwhelming at all price points. I had also considered just getting another set of monitors/bookshelf speakers, but to be honest I have no idea where I would even start.

Recommendations or even some advice to help me better pin down what kind of setup I should be looking at would be appreciated. So after reading around some the Magnepan LTS + Saga (for remote) + Vidar setup caught my eye, but I don't know if I'm on the right track with that one.

 

Can you share a picture of the area where the speakers will be used, and info about the room and the distance to the listening position? I had assumed until reading the last sentence you were looking for active speakers that would sit on a TV stand, but then you mention Maggies which would be placed on the floor and need a bit if room behind them.

I’ve used Maggies in a video 2.0 setup for years and think they could work well given some of your parameters. They would not be an issue with neighbors from a low bass perspective, but the flip side of this is that they need a bit more volume before they really sound their best. They also need a ballsy amp. Vidar could work given volume limitations, but adding up MSRP for LRS+, Vidar and a Saga would probably put you over $2,000 nowadays. (Magnepan just discontinued the LRS in favor of the LRS+, which is more money and excludes shipping costs I think.)

 

I wouldn't hook panel speakers to a setup that's going to be used for watching TV. Point source speakers and horns excel in that application. You'll never miss a line of dialog even at low volume.

 

@Lingering Sentiment
Not a specific speaker recommendation, but a couple general thoughts:
- if you have the space, go with bigger speakers. They are generally more efficient, and any sound produced tends to be more "filling" and thus you won't have to turn it up to feel the same volume. Some of the big 'ol Klipsch or JBL boxes would be great
- spend a few bucks on decoupling the speakers from the floor (foam pads, sorbothane, etc), and if you have anything leftover get some monster pillows or bags of insulation and drop them in the relevant corners to act as bass traps; it's all about reducing the noise to your neighbour
- as a completely random suggestion: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/373958905445 I have the smaller sibling of this and it sounds great, can be controlled via app, does radio, or bluetooth connection from your phone or laptop when not using the tv (which comes in via optical), etc.

 

In the past, I’ve dealt with neighbors and subs, and if you buy or make a decent isolation platform, subs are doable even in apartments.

 

Agreed, sorbothane works wonders here. I have suspended wooden floors and before i had proper decoupling i attributed a placement issue to a decoupling one.

 

Here is a picture of the space (please forgive the mess, I only recently moved and am still unpacking/tidying). The living area is part of a larger space that includes a dining and kitchen area, but the area I'll be watching/listening in by my measure it's about 117 sqft (around 9 x 13 ft). There are two glass patio doors in the same general area outside of the picture if that matters.The placement/positioning of the setup isn't set in stone.

Oof, I didn't realize that the original LRS had been discontinued. Sounds like that won't work for my budget then.

 

I was using my quite decent 2-channel setup for TV until about 6 - 8 months ago when I added a Sonos Arc SL specifically for TV sound ($900 @ Costco, deletes the Alexa features of the standard Arc). I think it serves it's purpose very well; dialogue is much much clearer and it 'just works'.

I also recently coached a tech-anxious friend through setting one up with her TV and she absolutely raves about the improvement. Could be worth a trial while you are considering other options.

 

I actually tried the smaller Sonos Beam from Costco in my home. Unfortunately after a week of giving it a try I wasn't impressed by it, and hearing the Arc at Best Buy on it's own didn't inspire much confidence either. Maybe it was the suboptimal conditions, but I wasn't really impressed by anything I heard in the store. I got the feeling that most of them focused more on fancy virtual surround technologies (that just didn't impress me) than just sounding good.

 

They definitely sell hard on the virtual surround capabilities, but I don't really care about those either. For whatever reason, I've never had much interest in getting multichannel sound going in my TV room, yet I am very interested in imaging, soundstaging and layering for stereo.

With the upward firing speakers on Arc we have actually placed the bar on the floor (!) and it sounds just fine for shows and movies - which to me means we can hear dialogue clearly and naturally. My room is relatively small at 13x15 with 7.5ft ceilings, which probably helps.

Not trying to sound like the Geek Squad here, but the Arc also integrates well with the Apple TV device, allowing us to use Apple's slick remote for all video activities. The simplicity helps keep the family happy. It was kind of a nightmare when they had to power up my amp, check the input on the preamp, check that mute was off etc. then wield 2 remotes to watch a show.

Sorry if all of this is off topic for the thread; for me, separating video sound from audio made both better which is my justification