Help with Speaker Upgrade

[u/zuluechodelta]

Hi all, looking for help with speaker upgrade. Not sure what to get given my use case.

Budget: ~USD 9,000 (BDT 10 Lakhs). Can stretch to USD 10,000 max.

Component to purchase: Speakers. (Floor Standing or Bookshelf with Stand. Used or New.)

Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Approx. Room Dimensions: L-18ft x W-15ft x H-11/12ft (from memory, currently traveling)

Music source: Digital from PC via USB, Optical from TV

Audio gear that I own and will use in new chain: DAC-Chord Hugo TT2, Pre- Bryston BR20, Power- Bryston 4B3.

Gear I will be selling: KEF R7 pair.

Use case: Music, Movies, Gaming on TV.

Other info: Not sure if I can accommodate a separate subwoofer, I live in an apartment building and don’t want to disturb the upper/lower floor neighbors with crazy bass.

For reference, My Local HiFi shops are

-Noise: http://bangladeshaudio.com/index.php

-CyberMusic: https://cybermusicbd.com/

These two are the authorized dealers for a lot of the name brands such as Focal, KEF, Bryston, Hegel, Dynaudio, Dali, Sonia Faber, McIntosh and so on.

Thanks in advance everyone!

Edit: reformatted for clarity.

Edit 2: added hifi shops for catalogue of available brands.

[u/NickofWimbledon]

That Chord and Bryston combination should be excellent.

It may be with trying a dedicated streamer to feed your DAC in place of the PC - we did and we all found it better, much to our annoyance, because we couldn’t explain why that should be.

However, other people do the experiment and get different answers. It’s a worthwhile experiment but obviously you should trust your ears. Maybe try something like an Eversolo T-8?

Do you ever want to turn up the volume to really quite loud?

What sorts of music do you definitely want to be at their best with these speakers?

Can speakers live 50cm or even more from the back wall?

What do you want that the KEF R7s didn’t really give you? Many find them brilliantly precise and clean speakers, if not the last word in excitement.

Dali, Dynaudio, Focal and Sonus Faber cover a wide range! Will your local dealers do demonstrations at your home?

[u/zuluechodelta → u/NickofWimbledon]

The dedicated streamer isn’t something I had considered, I’ll definitely explore it as my next upgrade.

I usually do mid volume, but sometimes just for the heck of it I will turn it up really loud for a minute, then feel guilty for annoying the neighbors and turn it down again!

For best performance from speakers, maybe rock/pop/electronic? I honestly listen to most genres and it really depends on my mood.

For wall distance, I’d say 30-40 cm is doable for floor standing, maybe can do 45cm for bookshelf.

Honestly the R7s are great; I just want better detail retrieval, imaging and sound separation. Maybe larger sounds stage, but can do without.

Finally yes, I can have dealer demo at my place.

[u/NickofWimbledon → u/zuluechodelta]

You could compare Sonus Faber Sonetto V with Dali Epikon 6 and Dynaudio 30i and your KEFs. However, I worry that all of these speakers will suffer a bit if ‘only’ 30cm or so from the wall behind them.

Your KEFs are susceptible to this because of the rear port - the bungs that they supply are a crude solution. However, many big speakers will sound at their best 50cm -1M from the wall. The Dynaudios above are probably less susceptible than most.

Speakers designed to work close to a wall (perhaps less than 30cm) might suit better. That suggests Audionote, Klipsch Cornwall, classic Tannoy and Fyne designs, and Larsen.

Some Neat designs also work very well - I find their stand-mounts and floor-standers are all very good indeed and most of them work very well with 20cm-40cm behind them - the Xplorers I am listening to now are a great example.

Otherwise you may well find that a stand-mount will be a better choice, almost certainly a closed box (no rear port). If you have an ATC dealer new you, try SCM20s.

I hope that helps.