Hello! Mahesh here from Singapore. I am looking for new speakers to go with my Nait 5si and ND5XS2. I currently have a pair of KEF Q500s as my main speakers and a REL T7i subwoofer. I am currently thinking of buying a Spendor A4 (around sgd 4.5k here in Singapore). I also found an ad for a used Spendor D7 for SGD 4k. I plan to listen to both. Appreciate any advice on what would be a better between these two. Is the D7 too much for a Nait 5si? Not planning an Amp upgrade for atleast a couple of years. I really like my KEFs but wondering what better speakers will sound like on my existing amp and streamer.
By the way, have been enjoying reading posts on this forum since i joined last year and can see members are very knowledgeable and helpful. Thanks!
Welcome to the Forum, Mahesh. I’d suggest that both the A5 and the D7 are too much for your Nait 5si. If it were me, especially as you like your KEFs, I’d get a Supernait 2 or 3 first, and then change speakers later. The A4 is not massively sensitive and you are likely to get an undynamic performance when coupled with your Nait. By all means try them, but make sure you try them with your amplifier and ideally in your home, though the latter may be more difficult where you live.
Welcome, indeed.
HH makes a valid point here. However, at that going price I’d jump on those D7s in a heartbeat! Incredible price. They might ‘outclass’ your amplification in the interim, but they are serious speakers; an endgame pair for some. I happen to own them and am astonished by their performance. Truly top-to-bottom, balanced sound. The bass will leave you shaking your head for those recordings that call for them due to the cabinets’ clever design.
I also have a SN2, so even my amp might be considered underwhelming for their class, but I look at it as a future-proof kind of transducer that will only shine further up the amplification/preamp line. Auditioning would be ideal, as not all rooms might welcome them. They don’t, IMO, require much by way of finicky placement, and could perform reasonably-to-very well in a medium-sized room.
Perhaps of note also is that the D7 are a bit more sensitive at 90dB than both the A4 (86dB) as well as the KEF Q500 (87dB) that @Mahesh currently owns (and is content with in terms of performance).
I think the D7s would make the 5si even more enjoyable. If you like the sound of an amplifier, a better loudspeaker will only enhance the listening experience.
A very good loudspeaker will not exacerbate the weakness of the source or amplification.
D7’s, particularly the non .2 version, will ruthlessly reveal the shortcomings of your source and amp. I’d say the A4’s would be ok though. I had a Nova with A4’s and it was pretty good.
There’s does seem to be a trend for expensive speakers and Econoline amps usually with a follow-up post several weeks later about boomy bass or harsh treble or some other malady.
Indeed. The difference between ‘can this amplifier get a noise out of these speakers?’ and ‘is this amplifier a good match for these speakers?’ seems lost on some. Friends of mine have a Nait 5i and some PMC GB1i and it’s about as dynamic as a lettuce.
But how should one determine that without actually listening to a set, which is obviously the best approach?
The PMC GB1i are in the same price range as the Nait 5si (and the Spendor S3/5R2 mentioned by @primemerkava), which according to price matching logic would make a good combination?
They are also the same sensitivity as the KEF Q500 at 87dB.
It’s okay i guess to suggest discarding certain amp/speaker combinations upfront, but then we need a clear ruleset to determine on which basis we make those decisions.
Listening is clearly the right thing to do, though hearing something in isolation doesn’t always help that much. The whole cost ratio thing is complex too: incidentally the GB1i was about double the price of the Nait 5i version around at the same time.
Say you had £5,000 to spend on an amplifier and some speakers. A £1,500 amp and £3,500 speakers may sound good on first acquaintance, but might a £3,500 amp and some £1,500 speakers sound better. Last year when buying my new system I took the latter route: to me there is something good about small simple speakers with a more powerful amplifier to really get the best from them.
In the OP’s case the Nait would drive either Spendor speaker, but both would be crying out for more, both in power and quality. It’s fine to be unbalanced for a while, but I’d suggest it only makes sense if the source and amplification can ultimately be brought up to the same quality. It’s very easy to get carried away with swanky speakers with loads of shiny drive units to impress your mates, but it rarely makes for a satisfying system to live with for years.
Yes a degree of balance in the system would seem desirable, although if the OP would now opt to buy a SN3 then the system would also be very skewed (£3,500 amp versus £269 KEF speakers).
I used D7s for several years and they are an excellent speaker but care needs to be taken in system matching as they are very revealing of source components.
I used them with 252,Supercapdr and 250dr source was a NDX and XPSdr and they sounded very good even better with a 300dr and much much better again with a ND555 as a source so this will give and some indication of the level of the performance of the D7s.
I would suggest a 282,250dr and source to match as a starting point with the Spendor D7s.
