Second hand floor standing speakers

Psiko

Psiko

Psiko

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14 Jun 2003
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I'm looking for some new speakers. I'm moving in to a bigger room after the summer and I'm thinking about making the move from bookshelf to floor-standers. I've got around £400 to spend, and at the moment I'm using B&W 601 S3s. Would that budget get me decent floor-standers or should I just get better bookshelfs (bearing in mind that I'm more than happy to go second-hand)? I like the B&W sound, so I was looking at 602.5s or 603s. What other make and models would give a similar sound and match well with my Arcam A85 and Marantz CD63SE?

Thanks for your help.
 
£400 will buy you some rather nice second hand floorstanders I would have thought. I bought my mission 783s for £430 new a couple of years back, and I should imagine that there are still some great bargains to be had.

If you've got £400 to spend, definitely look in some hi-fi shops around the place and listen to some kit. You could probably buy some pretty good speakers new for that price, and it would be worth listening to some more expensive models too in case you find some second hand bargains.
 
Psiko said:
I'm moving in to a bigger room after the summer and I'm thinking about making the move from bookshelf to floor-standers.
Click to expand...

how big is "big" ?
I think I made a mistake in getting some Monitor Audio floorstanders, to me they still sound a bit boomy in a 6m x 8m room. Plus moving them away from the wall means I'm falling over them.

just a thought :)
 
Try what you have in the "new" room, bigger rooms sound better anyway, so place the "bookshelf" speakers on stands and work with the position in the room first.
I would say "decent floor standers" cost around £1000 new upwards, so would look for them second hand, less than that I would stick with good stand mounts.
 
603 S3's usually sell for 300 or thereabouts, they are what I would buy.

Had a love/hate relationship with my B&W DM600's, great detail but the lacking bass annoyed me every time I listened. Bought MA Bronze B2's and now I really regret the change, I can't wait to buy some more B&W's, 601S3's this time.
 
I'm not sure you'll find a huge improvement going from 601s to 603s? You should try them in the bigger room first, I heard 601s in a large demo room and they sounded great. If you are dissapointed, firstly it may be the room acoustics and not the speakers. Speakers sound very different in different rooms, however if the sound is too quiet and the speakers seem to be working hard to fill the room (cones flapping around, dynamic compression) then the problem might well be in the size of the speakers in comparison to the room. If this is the case, floorstanders are a good option. I would consider raising the budget though for floorstanders; mabye look at the DM704s as you like B&Ws sound, which you might be able to get for £700 second hand.
 
I'd like to suggest you get out and listen to a few other brands/speakers to get a feel for how other groups do it. If you're sure that B&W are what you're looking for, then keep an eye on the obvious auction site and also ex-dem.com and similar.

Just to voice a similar comment to that already made, you might want to consider checking out your electronics first. Your amp is a good mid-range unit, but your CD player doesn't make it past good entry level stuff. £400 would get you a pretty good front end. If you fancy going that route, my suggestion would either be a decent DAC, or if possible a s/h Quad 99, which I still rate as the best CDP I've heard for under £1k. That would certainly give you system a good injection of ability.

After all, Linn weren't wrong with their comment of garbage in, garbage out, and a better pair of speakers will simply show up deficiencies in your front end.
 
It's actually my uni room which is bigger, so the speakers will be moving back and forth between my small bedroom at home and my large (L-shaped) room at uni. Floor-standers wouldn't be any good in my room at home, since it's quite small. Maybe I should just stick with the 601s for now, and upgrade my CDP. I was actually considering this, but I thought I'd see a better improvement in new speakers.

I was looking at an Arcam CD72 the other day. Is this a decent player, or should I look for a DAC and a transport? What DACs should I look at? I've never had one before. How should I split my budget between DAC and transport?

I don't see the point in getting a new amp. My A85 is surely the best component of my system currently.

Thanks again guys.
 
Psiko said:
I was looking at an Arcam CD72 the other day. Is this a decent player, or should I look for a DAC and a transport? What DACs should I look at? I've never had one before. How should I split my budget between DAC and transport?
Click to expand...

If you chose to go with replacing the front end, I'd suggest you avoid the CD72. I used to have an Arcam 7SE, which apparently sounds very similar to the CD72. It was just seriously boring to listen to, and was easily outperformed by the Meridian 203 DAC that I replaced it with. Note that I'm now several upgrades on from the 203, so that isn't the last word in kit either.

My thoughts on transports are that you either use a cheapy DVD player, or go for something pretty good, i.e. a Teac VRDS unit, Meridian 500 or similar. In between stuff doesn't seem to be worth the time of day (IMO).
So a thought would be to suggest getting a good CDP, that can then act as a transport at a later date, e.g. a Meridian 506 (apparently VERY good), Teac VRDS-10 or similar. Note that each of these can be upgraded with improved "clocks", which is a possible upgrade for £100 upwards. As already mentioned, I've heard the Quad 99 several times, and really do feel that it's worth hunting down. Great piece of kit.

If you're going down the transport/dac route, a possible DAC to look for would be a N.OS DAC. These are still great value and offer an amazingly natural presentation for just over £100.

Hope that helps.
 
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