*Picture for attention. This is not how they’re set up*
I started with the Klipsch R-15PM + 10SW, and I thought they were the best thing since sliced bread. Then, years later I found my beloved Yamaha NS-1000 Monitors. These were different, raw, natural, and I finally understood “image” and “soundstage”. Yes, it took years, but I discovered it, I think. I know that the NS 1000 Ms are unique in that their purpose was specific for creating music (I’ve read), but I like them and the raw feel, A LOT. So, at this point, I feel like they’re so good I’m not sure how something can be better. I can kinda imagine, but some of it must be in our own head, right?
I know “good” and “better” is subjective, but they’re almost 50 years old now, and if other speakers are selling for $80k then, for sure they’re that much better? I know there’s a difference between ported, sealed, and rear opened speakers too.
I love my speakers and I listen to them almost daily. I just don’t know what direction I would take if I had the opportunity.
Thanks for your input!
Way back in the 1970s, when I was an undergraduate, I listened to a set of Dahlquist DQ10 speakers at an audio shop near campus. I was ‘blown away’ with the imaging and depth of from the time-alignment of the drivers. I’m still pursuing the imaging that I first heard in these speakers and have come to prefer the ‘life’ of the sound over the sonic accuracy. But living in the dorms, I had neither the space or money for a set and made due with my large Advents.
A few years later I was also impressed by a set of speakers designed by a my electro-acoustics professor at Ga Tech, W. Marshall Leach. He used a 6th order alignment on a ported box (2 poles of the high pass function and 4 in the ported box & driver). Those speakers produced the tightest bass that I’d ever heard to that time.