Best speaker set up for £1000

tarantula123

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Any idea what would be best buy for £1000 budget (second hand included) for home audio speakers, passive or active.

A friend of mine has some old AVI DM10s which is what I am looking to compete with.
 
First, don’t compete. All that matters is what you like. Anyway, maybe something like these in answer to your question:
 
AVI ADM10's are easily beaten for sound quality if you avoid slimline low efficiency ported speakers. Even with an ultra budget amp, bought for £50ish off ebay.

It all depends on what deals you can find on what used speakers.
Good ones to aim for are Quad electrostatics, high efficiency classics from the likes of Altec, JBL, EV.

Or you can go the DIY route. Or the bespoke route, where you buy a set of drivers for under £700 and get a cabinet maker to make the cabinets for you.

And yes, it is satisfying to do oneupmanship in any area of your life. Including audio equipment. Where you get better sound for less money than other people. Especially the ones that are convinced they have some sort of world beating equipment.
 
Any idea what would be best buy for £1000 budget (second hand included) for home audio speakers, passive or active.

A friend of mine has some old AVI DM10s which is what I am looking to compete with.

I'd go active. What is size of your room and usage?

Dm10s are great speakers, but £1000 is good budget for active set up.


Lyd-8 is good suggestion but it might be too big for majority of the rooms.

Topping DX3 Pro+ and Lyd-5 or Lyd-7 should slot nicely into your 1k budget.
 
AVI ADM10's are easily beaten for sound quality if you avoid slimline low efficiency ported speakers. Even with an ultra budget amp, bought for £50ish off ebay.

Last AVI I had was 9rss, and 10 were step up.

And no, they are not easily beaten for sound quality...
 
If your looking for new or nearly new alternatives, then you could add the Revel Concerta2 F35 or the Monitor Audio Gold 300 (the 300's are just over your budget). Both are very well received speakers and although there are some big names above, for new/nearly new, you will struggle to find many better at their price points
 
Or you can go the DIY route. Or the bespoke route, where you buy a set of drivers for under £700 and get a cabinet maker to make the cabinets for you.
If one bought drivers am I correct to assume it's a single full range driver for each speaker?

How do you know when you do this the optimal size for the cabinet?
 
If one bought drivers am I correct to assume it's a single full range driver for each speaker?

How do you know when you do this the optimal size for the cabinet?

There are literally thousands of kit plans open for private use on the internet, almost all have driver lists, crossover schematics and box dimensions and quite a few have decent measurements showing on/off axis frequency response, impedance and in some cases distortion.

An example of a good, low cost solution is the Paul Carmody Tarkus - it uses relatively cheap drivers, fairly simple crossover but a fairly big box and is voiced for live music and rock, many have been built but so long as the box volumes and the front baffle dimensions are not changed then you can do what you like to the height/depth/shape. Parts for this, depending on finish would be around £500.


I would definitely start by looking for a detailed design that has been made a few times and use that. Designing from scratch is a long education and does not guarantee good results (I'll let you know later in the year!!). If you want to have a search, designers with a good reputation include Jeff Bagby (RIP), Rich Craig (RIP), Javad Shadzi, Kurt Campbell / Jim Holtz, Paul Carmody, Paul Kittinger (for MLTL designs), Troels Gravesen (sells kits through Jantzern Audio, not free to use) and probably a few I have not listed. Many of the manufacturers also sell kits or plans for their drivers (Tangband, Fostex, SB Acoustic and Seas do).

There are a number of full range or woofer assisted wide range (WAW) designs out there but these can be an acquired taste, tend to have limited volume and take a bit of effort to get right, Mark Audio Alpair or Fostex drivers and the associated designs from Planet10 (frugel horn site) are worth a google. Another is the Dayton RS225 + Scanspeak 10F8424 design by XRK on DIYAudio that is a transient perfect design and relatively cheap to build. The pure full range need no crossover but will always have a compromise in either top end, low end sound or box size.

As always it is down to your confidence in building the box (or having a friendly carpenter) and taking the leap of faith on a design that you probably will never get to hear before building (unlike big name high street speakers) but there is the possibility, if you choose a proven design, of getting performance from a speaker costing 1/4-1/10 of the cost of a similar high street speaker (i.e. DIY = £1000 = High Street £4000-10000). An example of the DIYAudio Open Source Monkey Coffin that has a build cost around £3000/pair (and uses a very expensive mid range similar to those used in the ATC top end products) that can compete with £20k+ class high street speakers.

Choosing complementary drivers, designing the boxes (including taking into account baffle step and diffraction losses) and designing an active or passive crossover from scratch is not for the fainthearted (therefore building a proven design is suggested), there are numerous free modeling software systems and driver manufacturers publish data and curves for their products but most will advise that measurement of the drivers in the box is the only way to ensure crossover design is correct (therefore measurement mic/interface is a necessary tool).

Bit of a ramble but gives you a bit of bedtime reading / searching.
 
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If your looking for new or nearly new alternatives, then you could add the Revel Concerta2 F35 or the Monitor Audio Gold 300 (the 300's are just over your budget). Both are very well received speakers and although there are some big names above, for new/nearly new, you will struggle to find many better at their price points

I got a bit excited when I read this but it seems you meant Silver 300. If you did want to sell me some Gold 300's for around the £1000 mark I'll happily take a few pairs though!
 
I got a bit excited when I read this but it seems you meant Silver 300. If you did want to sell me some Gold 300's for around the £1000 mark I'll happily take a few pairs though!
Sorry about that. Must have had a senior moment as I actually thought they were and hadn’t twigged with the price :facepalm:
 
Any idea what would be best buy for £1000 budget (second hand included) for home audio speakers, passive or active.

A friend of mine has some old AVI DM10s which is what I am looking to compete with.

I owned the DM10s. If you can find a pair I’d snap them up instantly.

They are a fantastic all in one hifi and sound quite superb.
 
Sorry about that. Must have had a senior moment as I actually thought they were and hadn’t twigged with the price :facepalm:
On the other hand, they do look like g6 silver 300s, which can be had new elsewhere for well below 1000. So are these actually nearly new g7, or an oversight?
 
If you’d prefer to buy new then I’d try to get one of these to use as a preamp.


Very good at everything it does.

And a pair of these.


Priced as single speakers.
 
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I’d also very strongly suggest this as a dac/analogue/preamp.


They are quite excellent. Simply transparent, I should never have sold mine, it’s one of hifi’s genuine bargains.

It’ll happily drive any priced actives and do so with some finesse too.
 
-- As an eBay Associate, AVForums earns from qualifying purchases --
Any idea what would be best buy for £1000 budget (second hand included) for home audio speakers, passive or active.

A friend of mine has some old AVI DM10s which is what I am looking to compete with.
How would u like ur system to sound, bright, balanced or lush?
For speaker;
Klipsch (shouty) rp-500m, dali oberon 3
would sound bright and high resolution.
Elac debut, elac unifi, triangle br03 for balanced
Polk audio r200, kef q350(might sound metallic to some) for lush, full sound.
For active monitors Kali in5 for lush sound and jbl 306p mkii bright to balanced, focal alpha 65 less bright to balanced.
For amp;
Yamaha 501
Nad c316
Denon pma-800ne
Marantz pm 6007
And cables and dac-streamer if this is how you gonna play ur system.
 
There's a surprising number of studio actives currently available on the UK second hand market:




Genelec 8040A Studio Monitors (Pair) | eBay (maybe open to offers?)


...and many others too.

As has already been said, choose size of speaker to (roughly) suit room size. Even a fantastic speaker in an unsuitably sized room will sound poor. Your friends AVI DM10 will take some beating.
 
-- As an eBay Associate, AVForums earns from qualifying purchases --
Last AVI I had was 9rss, and 10 were step up.

And no, they are not easily beaten for sound quality...
I've already beaten them for sound quality and I wasn't even trying hard!

If I can beat them easily, how come there are other people that can't?

On the DIY or bespoke speaker front, you can go down the kit route, but there's no need at all for that.
It's complete nonsense that DIY speaker building is a long education. Especially when the bar is as low as having to beat AVI ADM10's.

If you want to make a delicious meal, you get delicious ingredients.
If you want to make great speakers you get a decent set of drivers. Even if the cooking doesn't bring the best out of the drivers, you'll still have something that sounds far better than AVI ADM 10's.

Midrange units and tweeters don't care about cabinet size. It's the woofer where cabinet design makes a difference. There's websites that will size the cabinet according the woofer Thiele-Small paramaters.
 
On the other hand, they do look like g6 silver 300s, which can be had new elsewhere for well below 1000. So are these actually nearly new g7, or an oversight?
I'm just questioning this with the sales team as it's not clear. I would suspect that they should be G7, but until its confirmed,

Update: I can confirm they are G6 models
 
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Used is always the best value, get some used floorstanders if you have space.

Diy is difficult and a long process, don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. You do diy because you enjoy it and want to spend the time looking into it. Diy speakers are worth very little used. Used speakers can sell for the same money you bought them for
 
DIY speakers should be worth what you paid for the drivers.
If you had any sense, you bought the drivers used, or you bought new drivers that cost under £250. With that approach you will have less depreciation than if you bought £1000 new speakers from a dealer.

DIY can be extremely simple, highly affordable, involve a minimum of work and provide grin inducingly fantastic sound quality for the time and money spent.

At it's simplest you buy a pair of full range drivers. EG Fane 250TC's. Put them in a sealed box and wire them directly to the output from your amplifier. The sealed box you can either cut, glue and screw together yourself or subcontract to a cabinet maker. It will be less than a mornings work for someone with tools that knows what they are doing - and therefore inexpensive even if subcontracted.

Don't listen to any scaremongerers that say that DIY is a long and difficult process.

Used speakers are a great alternative to DIY, if you buy the right speakers for the right money. If you buy the wrong speakers, or pay over the odds for the right speakers, then DIY is better. Also if you are aiming for World Class speakers, DIY is better than used - based on the listening tests I've done so far.

DIY is worse than used if you buy the wrong drivers.

All in all, the very best sound quality for the money speakers tend to be BOTH used and DIY.
 
I've already beaten them for sound quality and I wasn't even trying hard!

If I can beat them easily, how come there are other people that can't?

On the DIY or bespoke speaker front, you can go down the kit route, but there's no need at all for that.
It's complete nonsense that DIY speaker building is a long education. Especially when the bar is as low as having to beat AVI ADM10's.

If you want to make a delicious meal, you get delicious ingredients.
If you want to make great speakers you get a decent set of drivers. Even if the cooking doesn't bring the best out of the drivers, you'll still have something that sounds far better than AVI ADM 10's.

Midrange units and tweeters don't care about cabinet size. It's the woofer where cabinet design makes a difference. There's websites that will size the cabinet according the woofer Thiele-Small paramaters.

Some people just adore having a lovers tiff with Ashley James. And have weird ideas about the practicality of home building speakers for about four 9s of hifi people.
 
More sound for your money with DIY but a major problem if you sell in the future is that DIY tend to be more difficult to sell. A pair of £500 speakers is easier to sell than DIY/custom self made speakers that cost £500 to build, even if DIY sound four times better than the £500 mainstream speaker.
 
More sound for your money with DIY but a major problem if you sell in the future is that DIY tend to be more difficult to sell. A pair of £500 speakers is easier to sell than DIY/custom self made speakers that cost £500 to build, even if DIY sound four times better than the £500 mainstream speaker.
All you need to do is to take your DIY'd speakers to one or two hi-fi events.
Preferably one where they are compared against dealer bought speakers costing their owner £2000 more.

Word will get around and you'll have no trouble selling them for more than what you paid for them.

That is, assuming you'd ever want to sell them. If you've got great sounding speakers for the price you paid for them, why sell?
 

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