Speakers are a very personal thing and with Active you have to get it right for what you want. The S800 are vert seamless and revealing of tone-structure withing complex weaves of notes, so great on Classical instruments - but also very ‘fast’ with their bass-handling, so great for rock and larger-scale live concert rendition, without it all collapsing apart.
The non-DR 500 was very good Active with them, but the DR has taken it to a far superior performance. The 500DR works well with a lot of Speakers I’ve heard.
I use Focal Maestro Utopia speakers with a nap 500. Prior to that I used Focal Stella Utopia, though that was with a NAP300. My room size is 4.6 x 6.7 m though with a high ceiling at 3.8m.
If you were concerned, there is no issue about these combinations being able to ‘drive the room’ up to and beyond any acceptable level. Like any large high quality speakers positioning can have quite an effect on overall focus.
For most people it is hard to arrange to hear more than a few large and high quality speakers in your home or even in sympathetic conditions in dealers unless you are very fortunate with access to dealers. Therefore I have not been able to hear all the options often mentioned in these threads, but I am entirely satisfied with my choice and the quality of the sound.
Incidentally the quality of manufacture of the Focals is very very good.
I seem to recall from another thread your K6’s had very few hours on them. I’ve owned my K6’s Sig’s for nearly a year and I can confirm they need hundreds of hours of run-in time before they really shine. The bass get much better, firms up and becomes more tuneful. The tweeter takes the longest to open up, but I get a very detailed almost electrostatic sound. Never bright or harsh and mine are sited in a room of glass and concrete!
I’d suggest giving your pair a good run-in before a changeout.
Focal Sopra 2s here on non DR but serviced 552/500. I think the Sopra 2s benefit from the 500 driving them. I also think it depends on room size and speak placement.
PMC twenty26 but looking to go with the PMC Fact 12 when I can find a good used pair with light wood veneer. The PMC range offer exception base response and seem to work well with Naim and my room.
B&W 802D Mk2. Our room is tricky and this particular speaker works well in it with the 300 and 500DR. There is no way of knowing for sure without a home audition.
There is no way of knowing for sure without a home audition! Speakers that sound wonderful elsewhere did not work in my living room. I’ll never, ever, buy speakers w/out a home demo. The home demos have saved me much heartache and expense.
100% what works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you.
You need to do the leg work yourself on this, its the only way to be 100% sure you have made the right choice
We’ve been listening to speakers and other things in essentially the same dealer listening room for 20 years. I can now make a guess as to how a speaker is likely to sound at home, based on what I hear in a dealer audition. But that’s a start point, not the end point. For the speakers we now have, we didn’t bother with the dealer audition and skipped straight to a home try out. It took over a year to land on the 802.
I suppose that if you live in an area where you can’t get that kind of dealer support, things will be more difficult. I take it for granted. But then again, if there was not a Naim dealer within 100 miles of me (UK) I probably wouldn’t be using Naim equipment. I’ve wasted so much money in my life on the preferences of other peoples’ ears, and the characteristics of rooms that are not my listening room, that the lesson has been learned for good.
New home won’t be ready until ~ 1 May 2021. Will make that decision after being in the home. If I won’t buy speakers w/out a home demo, I should not buy speakers without being in the home!
yes about a 20 minute drive west of our current place. It’s out in the forest - streets are somewhat far apart and each home is on about 1 acre (4,050 m^2 of land). Most of the homes are about 40 yrs old; this is a lot where there was a very small home that has been demolished to permit a our home to be built. About 15 miles west of the City of Boston.
I had the option of a gym, or a dedicated sound room. Going with the gym. We can put the hi fi in the open kitchen/family room and enjoy it as part of living in the home
Shahinian Diapason - they’re unlike anything else, speakers that scale properly without towering over you and create a realistic live classical/jazz/folk experience but are brilliant for everything else too. I love them. I spent decades looking for speakers that do what they do and nothing else does.
