Following on from my thread called "upgrade complete....." this is the result of a little experiment myself and Liam (lmccauley) conducted at my cinema room on Sunday night.
Ok, tonight has been very interesting indeed.
Liam came round bang on 8pm (i had just stepped in the door myself from getting back from Scotland).
The test was a comparison between the M&K 750thx and M&K S85 front three. The 750's are the same depth and width as the S85, with almost twice the height. The 750 uses two 5" drivers and tweeter, the S85 uses one driver and tweeter.(for more on the individual specs look here: www.mksound.com
The audio chain for this little experiment was as follows
Stereo material.
Source:Rotel 951 cd player outputting analogue and digital coax.switching between the two outputs.
Preamp: Denon 3801
Amplifier: Arcam P85 2 channel.
Movies:
Pioneer 444
Denon 3801 (front L & R powered by Arcam P85)
Speaker Cable : Van Dan Hul Hybrid
Other hi quality interconnects I cant remember the makes(on loan from Sevenoaks Newcastle).
I think we started with The Corrs and Breathless, not a favorite track but is recorded very bright. The 750's were very forward with this track, but there was plenty of small details picked out and excellent imaging of the sound stage. The S85's were just as detailed but a little less forward in the presentation, more laid back if you like.
Next was Dido, a good track for sybillance(if their is anything good about sybillance). The S85's handled her voice very well with minimal sybillance, agian the 750's kept up, and to me her voice was better imaged and more forth right than the s85's, so we put the s85's on again and this time set them to Maximun, and guess what, they gave a presentation not to dis-similar to the 750's, infact it was almost Identical. And certainly not as bad as we had feared, infact very listenable.
So on to the movies and as always the 750's were brilliant in detail and scale with their presentation, and the s85's not that far behind, infact it was a dead heat as I liked both with SW:AOTC as source material. We also came to the conclusion that the 750's were louder at the same settings than the S85's which wanted more power from the Arcam.
I guess the conclusion i can make is this, the 750's are brighter than the S85, but this is not a bad thing IMHO as I could here more detail and a better dynamic performance against the S85 in Normal setting. However this sound might not be to your liking and you may prefere the laid back Normal setting for music(depending on source material) on the S85. The 750 seems to play louder at the same settings, meaning to me they need less power to get their best performance. However when pushed a little more the S85s were equal in every way.
So which was better? Well I really dont know, this was by no means a critical listening experiment, but i would have to say that I found nothing to seperate them other than the more forward presentation of the 750's on music, and could not fault either on movies as they were equal again. At no time did either miss any details in the tracks, and both are very very neutral in presentation.
The winner, both. M&K produce some sonderful speakers and the thing that keeps bowling me over is the detail, dynamics and the Imaging which is fantastic. If you are used to warm muffled speakers you will get a shock, but a good shock, and once you get used to the procise imaging and dynamics you fall in love with the music again.
I am keeping the 750's. I have listened to them for a couple of weeks now and had to try a few different things to achieve the correct sound and performance, but that is down to electronics and room acoustics, certainly not the M&K's.
I will let Liam give his thoughts when he gets the chance, i think he will agree with most of what has been said.
FAO Craig : We played the Manics "If you tolerate this.." through both speakers and the result was the same, so safe to say it is a recording fault. Maybe eric could try this track on his 2510's to see if the sybillance is as bad, which i feel it will be.
__________________
Ok, tonight has been very interesting indeed.
Liam came round bang on 8pm (i had just stepped in the door myself from getting back from Scotland).
The test was a comparison between the M&K 750thx and M&K S85 front three. The 750's are the same depth and width as the S85, with almost twice the height. The 750 uses two 5" drivers and tweeter, the S85 uses one driver and tweeter.(for more on the individual specs look here: www.mksound.com
The audio chain for this little experiment was as follows
Stereo material.
Source:Rotel 951 cd player outputting analogue and digital coax.switching between the two outputs.
Preamp: Denon 3801
Amplifier: Arcam P85 2 channel.
Movies:
Pioneer 444
Denon 3801 (front L & R powered by Arcam P85)
Speaker Cable : Van Dan Hul Hybrid
Other hi quality interconnects I cant remember the makes(on loan from Sevenoaks Newcastle).
I think we started with The Corrs and Breathless, not a favorite track but is recorded very bright. The 750's were very forward with this track, but there was plenty of small details picked out and excellent imaging of the sound stage. The S85's were just as detailed but a little less forward in the presentation, more laid back if you like.
Next was Dido, a good track for sybillance(if their is anything good about sybillance). The S85's handled her voice very well with minimal sybillance, agian the 750's kept up, and to me her voice was better imaged and more forth right than the s85's, so we put the s85's on again and this time set them to Maximun, and guess what, they gave a presentation not to dis-similar to the 750's, infact it was almost Identical. And certainly not as bad as we had feared, infact very listenable.
So on to the movies and as always the 750's were brilliant in detail and scale with their presentation, and the s85's not that far behind, infact it was a dead heat as I liked both with SW:AOTC as source material. We also came to the conclusion that the 750's were louder at the same settings than the S85's which wanted more power from the Arcam.
I guess the conclusion i can make is this, the 750's are brighter than the S85, but this is not a bad thing IMHO as I could here more detail and a better dynamic performance against the S85 in Normal setting. However this sound might not be to your liking and you may prefere the laid back Normal setting for music(depending on source material) on the S85. The 750 seems to play louder at the same settings, meaning to me they need less power to get their best performance. However when pushed a little more the S85s were equal in every way.
So which was better? Well I really dont know, this was by no means a critical listening experiment, but i would have to say that I found nothing to seperate them other than the more forward presentation of the 750's on music, and could not fault either on movies as they were equal again. At no time did either miss any details in the tracks, and both are very very neutral in presentation.
The winner, both. M&K produce some sonderful speakers and the thing that keeps bowling me over is the detail, dynamics and the Imaging which is fantastic. If you are used to warm muffled speakers you will get a shock, but a good shock, and once you get used to the procise imaging and dynamics you fall in love with the music again.
I am keeping the 750's. I have listened to them for a couple of weeks now and had to try a few different things to achieve the correct sound and performance, but that is down to electronics and room acoustics, certainly not the M&K's.
I will let Liam give his thoughts when he gets the chance, i think he will agree with most of what has been said.
FAO Craig : We played the Manics "If you tolerate this.." through both speakers and the result was the same, so safe to say it is a recording fault. Maybe eric could try this track on his 2510's to see if the sybillance is as bad, which i feel it will be.
__________________