17 July 2013

Finding the Right Speakers

A couple of months ago I finally repaired them. Then I fixed the Baby Advent speakers that I bought new over 20 years ago, circa 1990. And purchased (and then repaired) a spare pare from Ebay.

The Aquarius IV is a very special design, it is a unique pillar, and a radiant design. A friend comparing it to my other speakers noticed immediately how differently the sound diffused in the bedroom where they live.

An employee at a HiFi store offered  $1100 for my pair, and the inflation adjusted price from new in 1977 to 2013 works out to about $1,600 a pair.

Compared to these the small bookshelf speakers in my office started to sound gratingly bad, my old Baby Advents, especially after repair still sounded good, but were clearly not as good. However the Baby Advents are awesome as AV main speakers in a small room. They handle two things really well – human speech and the low end (except for ultra low), during movies the floor vibrates, there is no reason to ever consider a sub-woofer with them in the room. Coupled with the Yamaha Bookshelves ejected from my office my surround sound is pretty awesome.

Back to the office, the second pair of Baby Advents would have been awkward to wallmount, and there is really no other place to put speakers. The Yamahas got away with not being on the wall by being small. So I figured that if adjusted for inflation the Baby Advents were about $375, I should be able to find a better speaker for less than that price that was wall-mountable.

At BestBuy nothing I listened to in the target price range sounded good at all, I finally went for Martin-Logan Motion IV speakers at $500 a pair because they came with wall mounting hardware and sounded better than any of the other small speakers. First they needed a few days burn in to be properly heard. To their credit their high end was excellent. Unfortunately with such tiny enclosures they couldn’t do justice to the low end or to human speech and after a week, back to Best Buy.

Next I previewed a Pair of Klipsch Reference Monitor 61 speakers (about $550 and not easy to wall mount). I pointed out that the Baby Advents are weak in the Ultra Low, not so Klipsch and pretty much everything shook the floor. Additionally a DJ or Baseball announcer speaking had a springy artifact (in both cases the voice is typically run through some reverb). For speech the Advents were the better speaker plus they only shake the floor when asked to do so. If I were ignorant of price I would still choose the Baby Advent over the Klipsch 61, back they went.

You can find these on sale for about the inflation adjusted price of my Baby Advents. But for about $125 including shipping and the foam repair kit you’ll need, a used Baby Advent is a better overall speaker and a much better buy.

Once the Klipsches are returned more shopping and listening. The final result: Bowers and Wilkins 685 ($650), about twice the inflation adjusted price of the Baby Advents. The Abbey Road studio (where Dark Side of the Moon and Abbey Road were recorded) has always been a B&W shop, and even in the entry level 600 series demonstrates why. Getting these mounted on the wall is worth an article of its own, but the important thing is I got them there and they compare well with the JBL speakers in my bedroom.

While it was easy to criticize the Klipsch and Martin Logan, the B&W 685s produce consistent quality across the spectrum, they don’t have strong characteristics to like or dislike. What they do show is that the JBL speakers in the next room have a very distinct character, when the JBLs were compared to everything else they were just so much better that they just set the standard. This is no surprise, the truly good speakers with designs similar to the Aquarius IV are expensive, as in $60,000 a pair. The Aquarius IV is the most attractive piece of furniture JBL ever produced and is far less sensitive to placement than a pair of 684 or 683 speakers (the floor standing members of the same series as my 685s), making it the ideal for a living room (if someone wants to gift me some vintage JBL studio monitors or another pair of B&Ws they will move there, but right now putting my best speakers in a place where I don’t often listen seems dumb). The B&W 600 Series in contrast are entry level Studio Monitors, and revealing weaknesses in other speakers (even when the other speaker still overall sounds better) is exactly what a Monitor should be able to do. When I was shopping, I listened to the 685 against the CM5 (the same size cabinet in the next series up), the difference in quality was distinct but only incremental, most notably a greater clarity at the high end. Next to the 685s the Baby Advents which sound pretty good by themselves show a distinct fuzziness at times, unlike the other current speakers I rejected, there is nothing that the Baby does better than the 685 which is just a better speaker.

Wall Mounted B&W 685 Speakers

Conclusion:

The Baby Advent remains the best value you will find in hi-fi speakers at about $125 per pair used, for an AV system in a small room they may as well be $1,000 a pair speakers for the way they perform.

The JBL Aquarius IV is an awesome niche speaker, looks like furniture, sound quality still competitive in the under $2,000 price range, ideal for a living room. They’re rare and somewhat of a collectors item, plus I’ve put a lot more than $30 into fixing them. For what you’ll ultimately end up spending a better value would be a pair of B&W CM9s for about $3,000 if you could afford it, or B&W 683/684 ($1,500/$1,1100) if you couldn’t.

The B&W 685 was the least expensive satisfactory speaker I could find, if your budget is more than Baby (as in Advent) size but you’re not ready or able to spend a lot, the only question is which color 685 you’re going to get (they come in Black, White, and Cherry). If you need to get something up a wall like I did you’re not going to do better for anywhere near this price, and no setup with small speakers plus a sub-woofer will sound nearly as good for anything other than computer games.

Products Reviewed:

Martin Logan Motion IV ($500)

Klipsch RB-61 ($550 at High Fi dealers, $400 at Crutchfield)

Bowers and Wilkins 685 ($650)

Advent Baby II (inflation adjusted $375 new, used $40-$80 plus shipping and $30 for a foam repair kit).

JBL Aquarius IV S-109 (inflation adjusted $1,600. Used $300-$500 in repairable condition plus shipping, plus parts).