Monitor Audio Silver 6 Speakers

It doesn't matter how good your amplifiers and source material are, if you have poor speakers, poor placement of speakers, or both, you still won't be able to enjoy the music as it was intended.

I've been searching myself for a pair of new stereo speakers to replace my old KEF Q1's.

One of the reasons is that the Q1's are stand mounters , and my room is such that one of them was prone to be knocked of, so I had been looking for floor standing speakers for a while.

After auditioning several models, I've settled on the Monitor Audio Silver 6 speakers in Walnut. They come in a variety of (real wood veneer) finishes, however gloss black and white lacquer is at a premium.
The finishing is superb indeed, which is just as well as they are part of the furniture. The only slight criticism is the plinth, which somehow looks a bit cheap, but is sturdy and gives the speaker added stability.  This is also where the adjustable spikes screw in, which are equipped with easy to adjust lock wheels etc so no need to try and get a wrench/spanner under the plinth to secure things up.

They are compact enough not to be in the way, and large enough to transmit sufficient bass.  Sufficient? Let's make that more than enough for my listening room.  I had to use the supplied foam bungs to plug the rear ports to reduce the bass a little.  This instantly shored things up.

Ideally I wouldn't want to do that, but my listening room is fairly tricky, hence the need. Your mileage may vary.

The Silver 6 is a 2.5 way design and to my ears it appears Monitor Audio has succeeded in making the crossovers from one driver to another seamless.  The 25mm C-cam tweeter sounds clear, open and slightly bright. Don't read this as aggressive, they are not. Perhaps it is because coming from the gentler sounding Q1's that I am hearing things I previously didn't.
My Arcam amplifier is slightly on the polite side so combining these with more forward sounding speakers results in a pleasant balance in my view.

In my room, I had to position them with a slight toe in ,which shored up the stereo image. If your
speakers are closer together, you may find this not to be needed at all.

The tracks I initially played to audition them at home were Chris Isaac's  Wicked Games (remastered), Diana Krall's Temptation, Vangelis' Rosetta , Gregory Porter's Musical Genocide, and finally the Eagles Hotel California live.
All these showcased the precision these speakers posses, bass was low and punchy, but never boomy (speaker positioning plays a part in this of course), and good resolution between instruments. In my listening environment they are placed ever so much too far apart but I didn't get the sense that I had a 'gap' in the middle. If anything, the soundstage was fairly evenly distributed between the speakers and a little behind it.  Compare it to seeing an artist perform live on a stage a little further away, rather than in an intimate setting right in front of you, that kind of feel. It wasn't flat, and in my room, that's all I can wish for.
These should be on the audition list for anyone looking for a new pair of floorstanding speakers.

Second Hand HiFi, Arcam DV135

As you know, this blog's main reason for existence is to write about my journey through HiFi, along with music reviews and product reviews.
One of the objectives is to illustrate that music enjoyment using good quality equipment, does not have to break the bank.  As I have owned an Arcam A85 integrated amplifier for some time, I was looking to complement that with a good quality CD player.
However, I also have some DVD's, and my wife doesn't appreciate equipment as I do, so a compromise needed to be found in a multidisc player that complements the A85 nicely. Enter the DV135.
The ARCAM DV135 has been around since late 2007 and the reviews it received at the time all ranged from good to very good. It was praised time and time again for it's excellent music reproduction, only falling short when compared to dedicated CD players of a similar cost. The DV135 plays DVD's , CD's and SACD's amongst others which is all I need. It also has an HDMI  output which means it connects up easily to most modern TV's.  It doesn't transmit surround sound in a digital format via that port, but for my uses that is not needed. I don't own a surround system, and have no interest in one either.

Playing a few well known CD's immediately showed a nice improvement in music playback, certainly when compared to my Sony DVD player, which was always a stop gap measure.
The sound quality of the DV135 is neutral to warm, with a very good soundstage and separation between instruments. Only the trickiest of recordings loose a little in that respect, but many CD players do too.

You would do yourself a favour to do a bit of research, find which equipment had good reviews, see what you like, and find them secondhand, if you can live with not having the latest and greatest.  I dare to wager that my system can still keep up with some of the newer stuff being released now, for a fraction of the price. I paid very little for mine, but it came without a remote. I personally don't miss that, and there are universal remote controls out there that I an substitute if I ever feel the desire.