I barely
have 3 decent speakers...
3. NHT 2.5i -- Narrow floor standing speakers with piano black finish and built in 20° angled face. Nice amount of detail without being fatiguing or unduly bright and sparkly. Three-way design, aluminum dome tweeter, 6.5" polypro midrange, and 8" side firing woofer at the bottom with ported design. Not super efficient at only 86dB/w/m but none of my lower watt systems have seemed to mind too much. Tends to put the soundstage back pretty far and somewhat narrow. Frequency response goes down to 29Hz although this seems to activate a room resonance, so bass gets muddy and boomy at the very bottom, depending on placement. Also, midrange is fairly subdued with these speakers compared to my others. Vocals seem to fall more into the background. Still, they are enjoyable to listen to. I think they would really blow my socks off in a big room where they could sit wider apart to take better advantage of the 20° angle, and if they were driven with more power.
2. Infinity RS3000 -- Just got these. They are what I'd call large monitor size. They are two ways, with 1" Polycell dome tweeters and 8" poly woofer. I think they are moderately efficient. I can't recall the # exactly. Extension is weakest of the three, only down to 65Hz or so. But that is made up for by quite a bit of detail to the point that they can be a little bright and fatiguing depending on source and amp. But mostly its not that bad. Interestingly they are great for testing equipment. I noticed the highs on my Dual were not up to par when using these speakers. On some material they can handily surpass the other two on the list--particularly stringed instruments. When I play
New Favorite, Alison Krauss and Union Station, I have to switch in the Infinities as that amazing guitar work is lost on the other speakers whereas it is just amazing on these. Similar for other string work--acoustic classical guitar, lute, and mandolin music, blues, etc. Bass, what there is of it, is nicely controlled. Can't tell you about soundstage because for now they are set up about 3' apart.
My only complaint is... I'm not real crazy about the oak finish.
1. Boston Acoustics T1030 -- I've had these the longest and I keep coming back to them over and over. Dual 8" woofers, 1" fluid cooled tweeter, and 6.5" mid. Frequency response down to 40Hz. They have enough low end to pull off rock, blues. Where the bass extension was really stunning was the HK680i receiver. On all the other receivers bass is not particularly impressive. Enough detail to hear what is going on, mostly, but without the highs being particularly forward. About as non-fatiguing as it gets. Midrange is not overdone but is forward enough that you don't have to search for vocals. I think they do a great job on all sorts of vocals -- male, female, jazz, rock, classical, you name it. Overall just a nice, easy, pleasing sound. Efficiency is something like 90dB/W/m and none of my tiny receivers have any qualms driving them. They are big floor standers with a subdued black veneer with a woodgrain texture. Soundstage is reasonably wide but not tremendously deep. The reason I keep returning to these is they don't do anything really annoying but do everything reasonably well.
In terms of timbre I don't notice any massive difference listening to instruments on each. Nothing strikes me as particularly "wrong" on any. They are all accurate enough without me having been to, say, a live classical concert in a few years. When switching between the three, the immediate differences are tremendous and confirmed the opinions I had formed of each from extended listening. I feel the Bostons come across as more natural -- maybe this is just what I am used to after 10+ years with them.
Gear listed in sig below. Have tried several of the receivers and sources on several of the speakers. Listening environment is my basement office, something like 12x14' ? Drywall, no wall treatments, strange shelf area made up of house foundation forming the shelf under where the staircase goes (it's trilevel house) on which all the gear sits, speakers are down on the floor. Floor is laminate engineered flooring planks. After I cleaned some of the clutter out of the office I had to put down a throw rug to absorb some reflections.
