Hi @PeakMan - the Iota Alphas on my girlfriend’s Nova do a remarkable job for their size due to the whole isobaric thing.
Ideally of course, we’d go a good deal further, and you can get amazing speakers on eBay for not much money, but we would quickly start adding a 250 and better speakers to his system, and then maybe an old 272 or it’s imminent replacement or 282 and NDX2 , and then that can justify adding an XPS2……
Do yourself a favour and listen to the Motive sx2 from the Neat range, easier to drive for your Atom, wonderfully musical and detailed without ever sounding harsh. Not their latest offering, but still one of their best.
Which country do you live? I have never seen Neat at a dealer, not a very popular brand in Southern Europe. My question was would the Kef R3 make the demanding difference in the system?
(Budget for spekaers max 1500€)
The R3 is a well-balanced high quality modestly-sized stand-mount, though do a good job on sounding a bit bigger, with a decent sense of scale. They want to be 70cm+ from walls.
Sensitivity is only 87dB, do the Atom’s little amp will still have to work very hard indeed to give big scale and volume in that room.
My ears are not your ears and these things are very dependent on system and room details, so I’d vigorously encourage listening as the best way to answer the question.
If I had to guess whether that is the right way for you to spend that sort of money on trying to fill that room with high quality classical music with scale, depth and vigour, I’d guess NO.
Several of the comments above mention approaches that I’d expect to work better. However, neither I nor most of those commenting know what apart from ar3s are available to you.
The Alphas are great little speakers, but if you want isobarics you’ll need to upgrade them to Xplorers.
Whoops! Alphas fire downwards with the bass driver but of course it’s the big brother that’s isobaric.
Apologies and thanks to @ChrisSU.
Your advice is that i should keep it 685S2?
My support for Iotas remains, but my support for try before you buy is stronger.
Wise words. I run Neat Iotas with Atom and now Nova but would always recommend a home demo if possible.
Gary
All you need is some high sensitivity speakers with at least a 10 inch bsss driver and the Atom would be fine.
If you could build them yourself as I did it would not cost a fortune either.
If you are in Southern Europe, in Supersonido, in Spain, they have Neats as well as Klipschs, and some more, right now with unbeatable offers of Forte III, not yet in your budget, but with this you would get what you are looking for (I know them well, and the sound is large-scaled and very vivid, almost like having the musicians in your room, and I think they would shine with your Atom). But as others have pointed, better to try to try before purchase.
If I have violated the forum rules, please, @Richard.Dane, modify my post as appropriate.
Does anyone have experience with Atom + Kef?
Yes with the Kef IQ90 and sound good, easy to drive for these Kef’s.
Now switched to ATC scm11 though!
I have the Atom driving the LS50 in the bedroom replacing a Qute2. I did notice an uplift in overall sound. Prior to that the Atom was driving KEF R500 in the TV room. I switched the two when I was having audio sync problems via optical with the Atom.
I figured I’d prove the Atom was the problem by connecting the optical to the TV in the bedroom, but it worked flawlessly. Now the Qute2 is driving the R500. A little less presence than the Atom but for TV watching and background music it’s fine.
I do miss the alarm clock feature of the Qute2 however. Never understood why that feature is on available with the Atom.
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