Just watch that you don’t get any bass problems from that empty box you’ve created behind the TV in the fireplace.
Now you know why I recommended the ND5XS2 on 3 April. If you are thinking of the new PMC Prodigy, why not just go with the twenty5.21i? They look so much nicer.
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Yup, I know now… Your recommendation came to mind as soon as I heard the difference… Blimey… 
The Prodigys didn’t get through the OH in terms of looks, so I will probably not even bother listening to them. She doesn’t like the design of the 21i either, but that’s not the issue. I am really impressed by their sound, but when auditioning them, I felt that they were a bit too neutral… lacking some warmth. Not harsh or fatiguing, but a bit dry. So I wonder if a subwoofer or the 23i might be the solution to that issue. But the 23s could bring their own issues (difficult to demo home, will SN2 be enough for them, more issues with room modes), so it’s not straightforward.
I am getting too tired auditioning speakers at this stage… 
. JERN 11 (+ REL) will most likely be the last new speaker I try and then I’ll need to figure out what to do.
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Trying speakers is certainly something I find trying, so you are not alone. One problem is that when you are testing you are being hyper critical and they often sound better when you are relaxed. I’m not really sure what you mean by too neutral; I’ve found my PMCs to give a very natural rendition of everything I’ve listened to through them. It rather sounds as though you want a more warm and bassy sound, the challenge being that warm can easily become woolly and the bass swamps the room. I’d rather have less than more bass, so long as an upright bass sounds like it does when heard live acoustically, I’m happy.
I had 23s for a few years with a SuperUniti and enjoyed them very much. It was only when I tried a 250DR with them that I realised what I’d been missing. Then again, the SU is on the woolly side, so a Supernait may well be perfect. I’d suggest they are worth trying. My neighbour has the Jerns, which sound super clear but to me not as good as the 21i. I’m sure you’ll get there in the end.
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Many thanks for the comments, very useful!
Across the room - is very likely to cause issues…I was forced into this and had to use a load of treatment and a little DSP to correct…
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Absolutely agree with you…
I once read … “at some point in your life you have to make friends with the pair of speakers that is staring at you across the room” … i.e. the search for perfection is lifelong and expensive.
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Out of interest, I assume you sit on the sofa to listen? Silly question it may seem but I have a similar setup at home and the problem may be less with the speaker position than with your listening position.
Try experimenting with putting cushions behind your back when listening. This will move you forward a few inches and that may make all the difference, or you could move the sofa forward a little. I find that if I sit back on the sofa it accentuates the bass because of head position relative to the rear wall.
Another possibility is, like I do, use small, sealed bookshelf speakers with a well positioned sub to fill in the bass. It has worked well for me and given the room nodes you mention this may give you more control of bass in the 40-50Hz region.
Let us know how you get on.
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When I had a room of similar shape but a bit narrower (from memory about a bit over 5m (into the bay) by about 3.5m, with big IMF RSPM speakers, I had them centred each side the bay with centre of front baffle perhaps 0.8 m from side wall, and about 0.7m from bay opening, allowing room for floor to ceiling heavy curtains to be opened and closed, when open hanging over the narrow front wall each side of the bay. Best listening position was an armchair pulled in front of a soft sofa that sat against the back wall.
Indeed I sit on the sofa. Not really leaning back when listening, so the distance of the ears from the wall is ~60cm. Indeed the bass gets stronger if I lay back.
Room acoustics notwithstanding, I can clearly hear the difference among speakers and compare their quality, so my target is to get speakers that I like and require minimum changes in the room layout/rest of the system. Even the Dynaudios have stopped booming like crazy after I bit the bullet and added the foam plugs in the rear ports. So it’s not so tragic at the moment.
The small speaker-subwoofer concept is something that I am not discounting at all (that’s why JERN is on my audition list). May I ask which speakers you are using?
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Good point! 
Thanks
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Inspired by the NAIT 50 thread, I ended up with a pair of Amphion Argon3S at home today… Also borrowed some decent 4m Inakustik cable from my friendly dealer to properly evaluate them. First listening impressions are quite positive, but I need to evaluate them longer.
They don’t have the otherworldly speed of the PMC, but still pretty decent. They are very natural, but I don’t feel I am missing the “warmth” to the degree I was with the 21i. Still early days though, we will see.
PS: It is impressive how much impact the speaker cable has on the sound. I feel that I shouldn’t be choosing a speaker, but a speaker-cable combination.
A system like that will suffer in the midbass area.
The JERN 11 claims a frequency response of 65-27,000Hz. “Midrange” is typically the frequency range between 300Hz and 5,000Hz. So I wouldn’t expect a big impact on the midrange really. It’s more about the low frequency room modes and how to avoid exciting them too much.
So, Amphion audition done and dusted. I had high hopes for them due to the thinking behind their design and their technical specifications, while their design was very welcome by my OH. They have a pretty natural sound overall, with plenty of detail and 3D imaging, however, for whatever reason, they were giving me headache after a while… Also, as much as I tried listening to them in a relaxed way, I couldn’t get drawn into the music and just enjoy it, but I was more paying focus to different details of the sound etc. So in the end they will not be for me.
In parallel, there was plenty on activity happening suddenly on these last few days… On Thursday a used ND5 XS2 showed up in Brussels region at a very decent price, so I naturally had to oblige… 
So the extra empty Fraimlite shelf didn’t stay empty for too long…
At the same time I got a serious offer for my Dynaudios which I had already listed for sale since one week… It all proceeded OK and after 5 years I got separated from them… 
So now the good-old trusty BW 685 have taken over, along with my self-made 7.5m amazon speaker cables… What fish does that make me?
So based on all the experience of the past few months, I decided to bite the bullet and ask for an offer on the PMC 21i + Stand twenty5 + 5.5m of Kudos KS-1 cable from my dealer. Which is precisely what @HungryHalibut had advised me to do (including the ND5) on post 5, two months ago… I know I would have saved myself a lot of pain and time this way, but if I hadn’t heard all the differences with my ears, I couldn’t have taken such a decision.
So now waiting for the offer and (mainly) the confirmation for the cables. I suppose if the KS1 are not available over here, the Tellurium Q Black 2 will be a reasonable alternative based on what I’ve read in other threads.
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So the Little Darths are finally at home 
No more speaker auditions for the years to come
For the moment I am running them in with my old Naca5 cables (not long enough for the new arrangement) and next week I will compare them to Tellurium Q Black and Inakustik something and see what I prefer. Not that easy to get hold of any demo Kudos KS-1 over here.
The stands are a demo pair from my dealer for now. I’ll get my new pair next week and then I’ll also reinstall my Isoacoustics GAIA III back on. It’s a bit stressfull to not be able to fix the speakers on the stands with screws like my previous ones, I admit… 
Any advice for the running in period?
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I would run in the new speakers for a month or so before starting any cable comparisons.
JMHO - YMMV
I have PMC 25.21’s and found that they took a good few months to burn in. As @feeling_zen has advised elsewhere, it is a good idea to leave the grilles on initially until the treble has softened. After that they are best run with grilles off. Enjoy - they are cracking speakers!