Hello,
I listen exclusively to classical piano music. My room is 10’ H x 14.6’ W x 27.5’ L. Dedicated room. Which Aspen speaker would be best for this type of listening? I believe the FR30’s would be to big for my room? Open to all opinions. Maybe Chris B. could weigh in on this question. Thank you.
These questions are tough without knowing the rest of your system and what speakers you currently have and what you want to accomplish with upgrading speakers.
I have the FR20’s and absolutely love them. But in the 2 years that I have had the FR20’s, I ended up upgrading my entire system around them in order to do the speakers justice. I also have a REL sub that allows the FR20’s to be out in the room.
My listening room is 15’ W and 32’ D, but I have a slope ceiling from 10’ to 15’ high. FR30 is perfectly sized and sounds great in my room. Your room is quite deep too, and if you have diffusers at ceiling, I believe FR30 will work simply fine, and FR20 will be the minimum size I will go for.
My system is the following: B&W 801 Matrix Series 3 speakers, BHK 250 amp, BHK Preamp, Theta transport/Adcom 600 DAC (BB PCM63) and BAT CD Player (BB PCM 63). Bi-wired Kimber 4TC and Kimber Hero interconnects. My speakers are on stands - 9” high. Some piano recordings sound better on the Theta/Adcom while others sound better on the BAT CD player. I hope this helps.
If at all possible, go with the FR30. Your room is pretty big by my standards, mine is 17’ x 14’ x 7’, though some of the 17’ width is lost due to a side wall (supporting a staircase) from the front wall to halfway to the back wall. I have FR20 and they work great. I might have been able to use FR30 but thought the bass would overwhelm and the physical presence would be a bit much.
I listen mostly to classical and jazz with a strong preference for stringed instruments. I have two locations and started with FR10 in one and FR20 in the other. I ultimately upgraded the 10’s for 20’s and it was for the midrange not the bass difference. I believe the midrange driver is the same in both the FR20 and FR30 so based on my experience I believe you will be very satisfied with the FR20’s.
I believe early FR30s came with a tweeter that wasn’t the match for the tweeters the FR20s were released with. If memory serves it wasn’t long before the FR30s had them as well. I heard very early FR30s and the mids and highs were obviously tip top sound. I have heard them in rooms half the size of the OP and there was no hint that it might be too much speaker. They played perfectly. Outstanding speakers!
You may also want to consider the physical depth of the FR30. I have a pretty large listening space but could not fit a speaker that deep and allow human traffic to pass in front of the left speaker. My Sanders hybrid ‘stats are also somewhat dimensionally deep, but not as big as the FR30s. I think the FR20s are quite a bit shallower.
Well, I think there have been some great suggestions in this thread. I do think that our larger midrange panel on the 20’s and 30’ has more refinement, flatter response and even lower distortion (than the smaller panel mid in the FR10) so the 20’s and 30’s are my favorite two models.
I would personally would get the FR20 for your setup and potentially add a subwoofer (like the new 12” model we’re releasing around the end of the year), if you need more low frequency heft or to mitigate room modes or any in-room unevenness.
The FR30 has double the output in the deep bass and lower distortion below a couple hundred Hz (from the additional woofers/PRs) and the voicing is a bit different and there is the rear tweeter and slightly more on the top end and bottom end in the voicing but I don’t think provides a huge benefit for primarily acoustic piano music listening.
I actually prefer the FR20’s imaging (slightly more coherent but less “big” sound) and more laid back voicing.
I don’t think you can go wrong here and we very much appreciate you considering PS speakers in your system. What does the rest of your system look like?
My system is the following: B&W 801 Matrix Series 3 speakers, BHK 250 amp, BHK Preamp, Theta transport/Adcom 600 DAC (BB PCM63) and BAT CD Player (BB PCM 63). Bi-wired Kimber 4TC and Kimber Hero interconnects. My speakers are on stands - 9” high. Some piano recordings sound better on the Theta/Adcom while others sound better on the BAT CD player. I hope this helps.
FR20 with 1 or 2 subs (I have 2, originally had 1) is awesome…
where do you start sending bass frequencies to the subwoofer ? Is 60Hz about right for the sub matched to the FR20?
I have my REL sub set at about 35hz as the highest frequency for the sub, and volume level of the sub quite low. So the FR20’s don’t need much additional in the low bass area, but it surely helps.
This is very room and placement dependent and needs acoustic measurement.
Subwoofer can fill in peaks and dips introduced by room modes. With more overlap between the sub and speakers, you can mitigate these response errors more. If you have a room and seating location where there are less issues, you might do what adifferentpaul does and mostly use the subwoofer to simple extend/balance the subbass.
We will have an autoEQ feature on the PS subwoofer but it only considers the response of the subwoofer(s).
My REL subs usually set to operate up to about 36-40 hz, depending…
I’ve heard the FR30s and they’re absolutely fantastic, but yeah — in a room your size they might feel like overkill both visually and sonically. For classical piano especially, you’ll want something that gives you detail, dynamics, and a natural sense of space without overwhelming the room.
The FR20s could be a really nice fit — still full-range enough to capture the richness of piano, but a bit more manageable in terms of placement and scale. If you can, I’d suggest auditioning them in your space (or at least something similar) because the way piano resonates in a room can be very revealing.
Chris,
I’m debating between the FR 10 and FR 20, so this is very helpful. If you (or anyone else here) can suggest other things I should be thinking about as I make this decision, I would appreciate it.
Well, there is a large price different between them but you kind of get more of everything - more refinement, more large scale dynamics, more transparency (much lower distortion in the bass region as well), etc.
It’s not to say that you couldn’t be very happy with FR10’s. That’s what I have in my apartment now. I do miss the the 20’s I used to have (when i had a hosue with my ex-girfreind though). 