What speakers have you found work best with your VTA St-70

Hello,

I am anxiously awaiting my kit in the mail. It seems to be "resting" in a processing facility somewhere in NYC. In the meantime I'm looking at buying a "new" set of speakers and would like to know what experiences other members have had in pairing up speakers with this amp.

Thanks Dave

Dave, I recently bought a pair of Bower's & Wilkins 684's and I'm very happy with them.

They have more or less the same working parts as the more expensive Bower's & Wilkins "CM" series, but finished with black (vinyl?) wood-grain veneer instead of the CM's polished piano black... which was out of my budget. If you have a Best Buy in your area they'll ship them to the store for free in-store pickup, which also saved me some money.

I liked them enough to buy a set of the bookshelf speakers from the same series (685's) which come with nice simple wall mounts if you don't want stands. These have good bass for their size and they're perfect for one room where I need something wall-mounted... I have a cat who doesn't know the difference between "floorstanding loudspeaker" and "fun scratching post".

of all the tens of thousands of speakers available, I've never found any that didn't work well with the ST70 . . .

I'm breaking in a pair of Polk Audio LSiM 703's.

I have a well broken in set of Totem Acoustic Forests
that keep asking me if they can have an ST-70 or -120 to play with...

I have a pair of Zu Soul Superfly's that are designed for amps like the ST70.

I have tried DIY the following:
Jordan Fullrange in a transmission line box
Fostex FX 120 in a double bass reflex box

I currently run my ST 70 with some high end Vroemen Diva superiore (small German manufacturer).Stunning!

All work very well. If your dealer allows, I would always recomend to try the speakers at home in your environment, with your sources and your amp before you buy.

Enjoy your amp. It is fabulous! I built one myself (check my blog) and have retired my highend SS amps....

Michael

That would be the best way to test out the speakers before you buy.

I on the the other hand made my choice slightly on blind faith and a lot of prior experience and reputation. I used different models of the same brand I purchased.

The reviews for the brand plus the room size I was working with along with a price point made me choose them. I do no regret my choice and can hear the speakers opening up as they are being listened to. Unfortunatley at this time I am using a solid state Sony as my amp and sound source...not bad equipment....but not audiophile quality either. I can only imagine them getting better once I put them on heavy duty speaker stands and getting them connected to the ST-120 and SP10.

I have some original Quad ESL's and would like to get a ST-70 or 120, but will not buy one without hearing it with those speakers.

Anyone else out there have the VTA kit connected to original Quads? Not the original Dynaco, but the VTA versions that are sold here.....

I have Klipsch Tangent t-5000's. I think it's the perfect match for an st-70
charlie

StevieRay wrote:I have some original Quad ESL's and would like to get a ST-70 or 120, but will not buy one without hearing it with those speakers.

Anyone else out there have the VTA kit connected to original Quads? Not the original Dynaco, but the VTA versions that are sold here.....

What amp do use with your ESL's now?

Three different ones:

1. The primary amp is a re-capped/refurbished NAD 3020B. Believe it or not, this thing drives the Quads with ease.
2. Secondary would be a conrad-johnson MF-2250. Nice for my Magnepan MMG's, but too much power for Quad's (although I have a protection board installed in the Quads). This is the amp I am looking to sell so I can get some sort of tube amp. I won't really miss this one for the MMG's as I also have...
3. Musical Concepts modified Hafler DH-200. Bought this in 1981 and built as a kit, modded much throughout the years. A keeper.

Tubes are supposed to be magic with the Quads, but must have a decent amount of negative feedback to deal with the Quads 30 to 1.8 ohm impedence range.....so I might consider a small class-A SS amp. But would love to try tubes, thinking that the ST-120 would be great with the Maggies in ultralinear mode, but use triode mode with the Quads....

StevieRay wrote:Three different ones:

1. The primary amp is a re-capped/refurbished NAD 3020B. Believe it or not, this thing drives the Quads with ease.
2. Secondary would be a conrad-johnson MF-2250. Nice for my Magnepan MMG's, but too much power for Quad's (although I have a protection board installed in the Quads). This is the amp I am looking to sell so I can get some sort of tube amp. I won't really miss this one for the MMG's as I also have...
3. Musical Concepts modified Hafler DH-200. Bought this in 1981 and built as a kit, modded much throughout the years. A keeper.

Tubes are supposed to be magic with the Quads, but must have a decent amount of negative feedback to deal with the Quads 30 to 1.8 ohm impedence range.....so I might consider a small class-A SS amp. But would love to try tubes, thinking that the ST-120 would be great with the Maggies in ultralinear mode, but use triode mode with the Quads....

I remember those days when David Hafler offered offered his preamps and amps as kits. I wish I bought one of each back then. I seem to remember them not be extremely expensive...somewhere in the $350 price range if i remember correctly.

I once had a pair of Quad ESL-57's driven by a Audio Research D-76a, best sound I'd heard till I blew a tweeter panel (no protection circuit).

I also had a friend who had a pair of Quad ESL-63's driven by a Marantz 8b which sounded awesome.

I think a VTA ST-120 in triode mode would sound equally awesome.

www.pispeakers.com

Build some 4PI speakers... The mid bass - midrange to high frequency will sound amazing on these from this stereo amp.. Then run a pair of subwoofers for the low freq. and smoothing.

I am running this now and the big speakers are unreal. The JBL 15" woofer with the B&C Horn tweeter. Big speakers rule!

The two which work well for me are the classic Dynaco A-25 and
the Sachikos - single driver DIY build using Fostex FE206 drivers.

I currently use a pair of opus3 crescendo ( swedish transmission line built in concrete )

For a small to mid sized room, you can't go wrong with a pair of Klipsch RB61ii speakers. Mine are wonderful. Very efficient and tight. The ports are on the front so you can put them closer to the wall or hang them. I have mine out about 18" and toed in slightly. Very directional though.

I have to agree with Roy I have read rave reviews from many members about all kinds of speakers all rated highly. The one thing I can add is that These amps really love the full ranger type drivers. They grew up together.
Although some lack a bit of bass they can be assisted with a sub or with the right cabinet design.
I'm using a pair of DIY ultraflex type boxes based on the classic Jensen design that Steve Deckert modernized called the NFX with a apir of his customized Fostex FE206en drivers (99db) and these really have good bass kick which I am sure the boxes are responsible for. They are big though.

There are hundreds if not thousands of speakers/brands that will get a wonderfull sound with the st-70/vta-120. You can spend the rest of your life trying to read other's experience, that it is good, but at the end of the day, you and only you will choose which speakers you like.
In my experience, there are no specific rules to choose a pair of loudspeakers. I had listened low efficiency "cheap" speakers (84-85 db) with DIY 8 watts single ended amps that really sounds nice (at reasonable level volume), and I've heard systems that costs maybe half a million USD sounding really bad.
A good audio enthusiast makes a good speaker it doesn't matter its price, not a speaker makes good audio enthusiasts. IMHO.

Well, I run a pair of Paradigm Studio 10 V5 speakers and they sound great. HOWEVER, I am in provess of building some Madisound BK-12 back loaded with Fostex FE126N full range driver. Questions:

1) Who has built these kits and how do they sound?
2) Contemplating building a kit using having a Lowther full range drive unit. Who has done this??

As always ... depends.

Mostly on your room size and genre preferences. If you have a large area to fill and like to rock, you might want to put extra emphasis on efficiency.

I have a smallish room, but I like to ROCK, and my speakers (McIntosh XR16's) are fairly inefficient with an 89db rating. For that, I decided to go with the ST120, and am real happy with the choice. Nice to be able to crack plaster and still have some reserve, doncha know ...   

I heard that!. I can remove wallpaper with my ST-70 and the Klipsch Forte's!

I run my st70 through Monitor Audio Silver RX6's and the sound walks into the room.  Detailed, open, clean.  I've also tried some old JBL's and was surprised how good they sounded.  I agree that many speakers will probably sound good with your amp.  Speakers do make a big difference so if you can, try some out and decide what you like.  

I will warn you though that brand new speakers need time to break in, and no I'm am not in the camp of those that think speaker cables need to break in, but speakers definitely do need to break in.

Did some one say Sachikos? I built their slimmer iteration, Saburos-- also a single driver full-ranger. Before that, zigmahornets, and before that, Linn Index IIs.

My experience is repeated often in cyber DIY land: kit or plans-built speakers give you many times the value per dollar compared to commercially made. If you're nervous about building, I'd search forums for good values in used. Pink Fish Media, Crossover network, etc. that way you can buy, try, and flip 'em with little or no loss when you want to try something else.