allthumbs

I think the Pro's are a step up, but cheaper monitors and some of the not so cheaper monitors seem to have varying amounts of hiss and others are quiet as the grave. Might be best to send your pair back to be sure to be sure. There's a lot of discussion all around the net about monitor hiss mainly involving cheap D-class amps and the lack of attenuation on the tweeter. Good to hear the 2000 pros are silent.

I think the hiss is the price you pay for using active speakers I have a pair of JBL monitors that do the same although I am run them midfield and can't hear the hiss from my listening position without music running and obviously not when music is playing. I have to get up pretty close to the tweeter to hear the hiss. As I understand it, it is a common "problem" / characteristic of active speakers. I am sure others will chime in if I am incorrect.

I'm not sure how long you have had your current set up, I am guessing not too long? There are any number of people with the best of intentions here at stereonet willing to spend your money 😃, but in my very humble opinion you have a pretty decent set up as it stands with very well regarded gear especially your speakers. Unless you can identify what you are missing how will you know when you get it by installing other pieces of kit willy-nilly? Perhaps you can trial other DAC's or amplifiers in your system before purchasing as way of testing the waters if you are convinced you can get more from your speakers via changing other components?

Hi Francisco, may I ask what "juice" do you think you are not getting from the Focal's?

None at all, I just couldn't find the link to the article and I didn't want to start a new thread as to whether someone else had seen it, it's quite an announcement. Thanks for the link. Cheers

I don't know if I dreamed it Marc, but I swear I saw a post from you in this forum in regards to a brand new material KEF has developed that will change speaker capabilities radically for the better. For the life of me I can't find hair nor hide of it. Can you repost it please?

Unfortunately I am the wrong guy to answer that question as my listening levels are low to moderate.

Hi Geoff, I am pretty sure it was the Vifa/Peerless: https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/ring-radiator-tweeters/vifa-xt25tg30-04-1-ring-radiator-tweeter/ Cheers

"During one of their first meetings, Oskar Heil surprised Klaus Heinz by telling him that it had actually been him who invented the dome back in the 1930s. “How was that possible? From everything I knew, Wolfgang Seikritt invented domes in the 1960s, and in Germany. Yet here was Oskar Heil who led me through the almost absurd process of his invention: “What I did,” he explained, “was that I took my mother’s silk stockings, then added a darning mushroom, drew the stocking over the mushroom, applied egg white as a thin coating, let it dry out, glued it to a voice coil – and there it was: the first dome tweeter made of wood, stockings, and eggs.”" I remember reading that Wolfgang Seikritt after coming up with the silk dome tweeter because of delivery shortages, bought a load of material for a silk tie manufacturer and used the material for the dome tweeters. I think he was with Braun or Heco at the time.

Not to my ears that I can hear or decipher. I use the default as well. As I get older I do less fiddling there's simply too much music out there to hear.

😵 I appreciate the offer @andyr and I'll bear it in mind, that's some set up you have. Do you run them all with the same PCM Filter setting?

I have been impressed with the measurements and performance of both the Topping D30 that I use with my passive speaker set up and with the Topping E30 for the same reasons but with the ease of the additional remote control that I can use with my powered monitors to control volume.

Maybe consider a pair of powered speakers like the JBL 305p's running with a Topping DAC like the D30 or E30. Just a thought.

Although the Ushers were not my favourite speaker and I moved them on after a few years, I wish I hadn't. For $250 - $300 that is a lot of speaker for the money if in good nick. They were giant killers in their day and still hold their own with a lot of contemporary stuff you'd pay 4 or 5 times more for. Honest sound comes out of them IMHO.

I've had a lot of time for headphone listening while in lockdown over the last few months and the better half working from home. I have a collection of headphones nothing too expensive including: Audio-Technica: MX40's, Air700's & Air900x's Sennheiser: HD280 Pro's and PXC550's BrainWavz : HM5's AKG: K242 HD's AudioFly: A140's Sony: MD7506's I like them all, each on their own are very good, especially the AKG's and the Audiofly's and for noise attenuation the Sennheiser HD280's are incredible and it's good to have some one handy nearby in case you have trouble freeing your head from their grip. But in comparison to my 40 year old Stax Lambda with SRD-7b all of the other's special positive characteristics are highlighted but their overall performance lack. I've spent hours with the Stax and you can start to take them for granted, but I keep going back and that first moment of astonishment as to what they do never gets old. I consider the AKG K242HD's pretty special for not a lot of dollars as do I the Audiofly IEM's that I picked up recently for a very low price when I read a recommendation from a fellow SNA'er (I can't remember who but he has my eternal thanks). The Stax have never blown me away, and I think that is their magic, 40 years on from analogue to digital they are consistently excellent. The Roger Federer of headphones.