Advice sought for Front L,C & R for AV & HiFi please

davidmcclen

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Hi

I’ve recently moved to a new house having lived in a small London flat for the last ten years. I’m keen to take advantage of the increased space to upgrade my speakers from my Monitor Audio Bronze BX2 with Centre. They’ve served me well but with more space I’m keen to move to floorstanding speakers with matching centre - something fuller and with more weight.

my current equipment is a bit of a hodgepodge of items - with some things bought from this forum.

I have:

AVR: Denon X6700
Sub: BK Gemini 2
Surround side and rears: MA Mass v1
Atmos: 2 front Elac debut upfiring

I‘m intending to add an integrated stereo amp that has HT bypass such as the audiolab 6000 or the Roksan K3 for stereo/music listening. My usage is probably about 70% movies/gaming and 30% stereo music.

Finally, the reason for the post is that I had settled on the Dali opticon 6mk2 and matching Vokal. I received the option 6s however have now been told that the Vokal won’t be available until October. The supplier has kindly offered to lend me an alternative (non Dali) centre to tide me over until then however that doesn’t sound too appealing and so I think I’m back to square one in terms of replacing the front three.

All recommendations / suggestions are welcome. I have attached a very basic plan of my room / listening position which I appreciate is far from ideal. tagging @Mr Wolf as we started this conversation on another thread.

thanks
 

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Why not just run the Opticon 6's as a 4.1 system until the Vokal centre is delivered? Especially if you're happy with the Dali's as your L&R. Getting a new (different brand LCR), having settled on the Dali's may result in buyer remorse.
 
Not only that

there you go
Good find but that's a mk1 Opticon Vokal The OP has MK2 6's - so while the MK1 vokal will likely tonally match the L&R. It might not from a visual perspective.

Having said that £349 is a steel and he could always re-sell it once his MK2 arrives. He probably not lose much money wise either.
 
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Not only that
Good find but that's a mk1 Opticon Vokal The OP has MK2 6's - so while the MK1 vokal will likely tonally match the L&R. It might not from a visual perspective.

Having said that £349 is a steel and he could always re-sell it once his MK2 arrives. He probably not lose much money wise either.
Exactly
 
Thanks guys - just to explain - I bought the three Dali’s together as a package with a substantial discount if I bought all three - that’s why I’m essentially starting again unless I wait until October. But I’m a little impatient haha.
 
Thanks guys - just to explain - I bought the three Dali’s together as a package with a substantial discount if I bought all three - that’s why I’m essentially starting again unless I wait until October. But I’m a little impatient haha.
Will the dealer not deliver the 6's now and dispatch the Vokal once stock arrives?

Richersounds do this all the time. There was a 3 week delay on my Monitor Audio Silver Rears, but they disconnected everything as package and dispatched the stuff as stock became available.
 
Thanks guys - just to explain - I bought the three Dali’s together as a package with a substantial discount if I bought all three - that’s why I’m essentially starting again unless I wait until October. But I’m a little impatient haha.

I wonder does any other dealer price match what you got and have them shipped right away / sooner?

" something fuller and with more weight."

"My usage is probably about 70% movies"

"Sub: BK Gemini 2"


You need to change the subwoofer, it`s not really something i would use in detached house with such high % use of movies! There will be dramatic change for better when you swap it for something larger. Big floorstanders won´t help you, they can make difference with 2ch listening but less so with movies with small woofer.
 
Thanks all - yes the dealer has delivered the 6’s and I have these now (albeit they mistakenly sent two ‘right’ speakers and non sequential serial numbers). They’re happy to swap these over and to deliver the Vokal in October. I guess the impatient side of me thought 3 months without the centre was a bit much and perhaps I should look at something else. Being new to this, perhaps also some doubt as to whether I’d made the right choice as I hadn’t sought advice on here before.

If the complete set of Dali’s are worth the wait over something else in the same ballpark price bracket then I guess I can go down the route of borrowing the dealer’s centre speaker for the next few months and learn to be patient.

Noted re the sub. I bought it on these forums - my first ever sub and have to say it does make things rattle when turned up!
The Denon audessey app has instructed me to turn it way down and whilst I have adjusted this up to get a bit of rumble, it did make me think that even with a more substantial sub, would there be a demonstrable difference if I followed the audessey setup to the letter.
 
If the complete set of Dali’s are worth the wait over something else in the same ballpark price bracket then I guess I can go down the route of borrowing the dealer’s centre speaker for the next few months and learn to be patient.

Maybe @darrenhaken can explain what a full front 3 of the Opticon Mk2's sound like etc.

Noted re the sub. I bought it on these forums - my first ever sub and have to say it does make things rattle when turned up!
The Denon audessey app has instructed me to turn it way down and whilst I have adjusted this up to get a bit of rumble, it did make me think that even with a more substantial sub, would there be a demonstrable difference if I followed the audessey setup to the letter.

A bigger sub will make a huge difference imo. If you want to stick with BK, either of these will do the trick imo:


I owned the sub above. Was fantastic in my 4.57x3m room. The only reason I sold it...

I wanted to go dual subs and couldn't fit 2 of them in.

This is the same sub, but without the additional passive radiator on the bottom. Comes in downfiring and forward firing configuration.

Re setting up the Gemini. Set the dials on the sub as follows (prior to running Audessey)

Hi Level Gain Min
Low Level Gain 12 o'clock (turn it up if audessey reccomends during calibration)
Low level frequency 120Hz
Phase 0

Post calibration. Set all speakers to "small" in the AVR settings and set crossover for the front 3 to 80Hz and the rears to 120Hz.
 
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Awesome - thanks @Jester1066 - really appreciate it. It’s a great community on here - was a bit apprehensive posting all my stupid questions but everyone’s been nothing short of brilliant.
 
@davidmcclen I have bought the Dali Opticon 6 mk2s, Vokal mk2 and a set of Oberon On-Wall's for the rears over the last 4 weeks.

I got the 6's first, a week later the Vokal and then only today the Oberon's. The 6's sounded lovely and are really starting to get broken in now, they're sounding even better!

It is always recommended to have your LCR match and frankly, the Vokal blew my socks off. A lot of home cinema audio comes from the centre channel and it has made such a massive difference to the overall quality of my system. For me personally, I would say it's been the greatest reason to buy the speakers.

If you have any questions please do let me know.
 
Awesome - thanks @Jester1066 - really appreciate it. It’s a great community on here - was a bit apprehensive posting all my stupid questions but everyone’s been nothing short of brilliant.
No worries - we're all at different stages of our AV journey.

The P12300SB-PR is a great sub. If you wanted even more oomph you could get a BK monolith (as you do have a large open space to "pressurise" looking at your floor plan).

Also feel free to pm or post your post calibrated speaker settings, prior to making any changes etc.
 
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@davidmcclen I have some thoughts on this but first I need to ask you a few questions.

Do you have access to demoing any speakers (in-home or at a dealer) or are you simply planning to buy on the basis of specs, reviews and recommendations? If you can test, do you know which brands you have access to?

I ask because speakers can sound very tonally different to one another and one's preference in this area is very much a personal thing. I personally wouldn't be very comfortable buying a set of LCR speakers that I'd never heard before, unless perhaps I was familiar with the brand and confident that I liked its sound signature.

Also what's your maximum budget for the LCR speakers and how loudly do you like/want to listen? i.e. at what volume setting.
 
Agree with the above. Don't buy on the basis of reviews or personal recommendations from members. Members will give a good indication as to what speakers you should perhaps be looking for but most will recommend on personal taste and experience. That may not be the right sound signature that you or your room will like.

Auditioning speakers, at home preferably, is absolutely essential as it is a really personal experience.
 
Agree with the above. Don't buy on the basis of reviews or personal recommendations from members. Members will give a good indication as to what speakers you should perhaps be looking for but most will recommend on personal taste and experience. That may not be the right sound signature that you or your room will like.

Auditioning speakers, at home preferably, is absolutely essential as it is a really personal experience.
+3 for this. I'd never advocate buying speakers purely on the recommendation of current owners.

I got the impression that the OP had already demo'd the Opticon 6's and was seeking reassurance that waiting for the delayed delivery (of the vokal centre) was "worth the wait". This is what prompted me to tag @darrenhaken, as ironically he was also facing a similar dilemma to this and subsequently sourced his matching Vokal centre from elsewhere.
 
Hi

I’ve only had the chance to demo two sets - the Dali‘s (in stereo and the monitor audio silver in stereo and as part of a 5.1 set up. Both were in store comparisons so not ideal. The Dalit’s were clear winners over the MA silver range for me.

There are Other speakers in a similar price bracket that I haven’t been able to demo - B&W, Tannoy, Focal Chora, whatfdale evo etc.

Max budget for the front three is c£2k. Volume wise, gentle listening at -30db and more active listening I don’t go beyond -18db
 
Some observations/thoughts about what you might shortlist to demo.

Even though the system's main usage will be movies/gaming, the fact that you're even considering the need for a separate stereo amp when you already have an X6700 suggests to me that you're a "critical listener" when it comes to 2-channel music (I am not). Given this, I think you should definitely stick with a tower speaker for your mains.

I would also only shortlist speakers with at least 6.5" LF drivers, IMO they almost always sound better than 5.25" ones, especially with music.

On paper, my only concern with the Dalis you're looking at is that, as it only has a single LF/Mid 6.5" driver, the centre speaker is much weaker than the mains and could struggle to keep up. In your case this probably wouldn't be an issue though due to your moderate listening levels and relatively short distance to the MLP. At -18dB, I estimate that you should only need about 7 watts of power in the centre channel to cover the 20dB peaks in movies and still have 3dB headroom! Neither speaker or amp should be stressed at all.

In terms of other options, I would definitely look at the new Focal Chora range - they review well and have a nice looking twin 6.5" driver centre speaker which is getting harder to find these days at this price point. Even B&W have dropped to only having a 5.25" option (HTM6).

Oh yes, I agree with @Gasp3621 in that you are definitely under-subwoofered but that's a discussion for another day!
 

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