Ryan R610 Speakers: The Audiophile System Builder

Do you remember your first pair of loudspeakers? The Ryan R610 speakers were not my first but I would have been content with them being the last pair of loudspeakers I purchased.

I remember lugging a pair of Celestion Ditton 33 MK II loudspeakers upstairs from my parent’s living room in 1983 and feeling the burn in my arms. The chunky bookshelf speakers were a 3-way design with a new type of super tweeter and ring compression driver. Not that hard to drive but definitely on the cooler side from a tonal perspective. The Celestion were 35 pounds and extremely inert. 

A Yamaha CA-2010 integrated amplifier drove them for almost 10 years, and I still remember watching a clumsy mover drop them accidentally on 62^nd Street in New York City.

Do you remember John Belushi’s expression from Animal House when a clumsy mover dropped his last case of beer following the expulsion of Delta House from Faber?

Almost verbatim.

Wharfedale have tapped into that segment of the market who love larger bookshelf loudspeakers with their best-selling Linton Heritage speakers and there is a lot to love about the design and their creative stands that must be considered mandatory.

Multiple pairs of Wharfedale loudspeakers were glaring at me in my home office the night as I moved the Ryan R610’s into position. 

The Ryan R610s are not new loudspeakers but they remain in production and have flown under the radar for almost 8 years; a circumstance that I find utterly ridiculous. 

At 16.73″H x 8.86″ W x 12.1″ D, the R610s are considerably larger than most two-way speakers and rather heavy at 33 pounds. Use both hands when placing on your speaker stands or you will be sorry. I have huge mitts and made sure to insert some of my fingers into the rear port to make sure they couldn’t tumble off the top plate which isn’t that large. 

The height of the R610s did force me try different types of set-ups because my 24″ single-post GHA steel stands set the tweeter quite high (even for a 6’3″ listener such as myself) in relation to my listening position. I experimented with the R610s on a CB2 media console with a height of 21″ and turned sideways on an inverted IKEA Kallax which is set 7 feet in front of my home office desk. 

Regardless of how you set them up, ensure that the stand or base that they sit on is quite inert. 

I do own multiple sets of IsoAcoustics speaker stands which allow you to place bookshelf loudspeakers on a media unit or desktop – but I found that they did not improve the sound in a way that I liked; the Ryan R610s can be ruthlessly revealing depending on the rest of the system and the stands made them sound somewhat sterile; these are definitely loudspeakers that will reward you when you select wisely or punish with the wrong amplifier.

The Ryan R610 speakers need at least two feet from the wall behind them. I would also heed the advice of Todd Ryan and place them at least 7′ apart and then angle them in towards your head. I’m not obsessed with the width/depth of the soundstage, but the R610s reproduce it well with proper placement.

The 6.5” woofer driver employs a laminated Nomex cone to minimize breakup and ringing throughout its frequency range and beyond. The design of the woofers motor and suspension was perfected using the Klippel Distortion Analyzer. Mrs. Klippel must be very proud. 

The 1” tweeter utilizes a proprietary treated cloth dome sourced in Japan. Ryan has gone old school with the tweeter by applying a felt ring to the front surface of the tweeter; it looked odd at first, but it does help to minimize early reflections and the proof is in the listening.

Unlimited Power 

The Ryan R610 speakers are rated at 86dB (8 ohms) and they don’t represent the most difficult load but my experience with them suggests that they do better with 50 – 100 watts (or more) than with lower powered tube amplifiers. I have run them with 8 watts of SET amplification and while the sound quality was divine, they ran out of gas very quickly. 

They definitely sound better with more power and they certainly need an amplifier with meat on the bones.

I wondered about the Cambridge Audio Evo 150 Network Amplifier and Unison Research Simply 845.

Both amplifiers have the right tonal balance and power output to make these loudspeakers work.

The Cambridge will deliver a lot more power and greater control in the low end, whilst the Simply 845 will tame the top end, create spooky imagery, and add layers of texture and presence to the music.

Sources

Pro-Ject X2 B Turntable with the Sumiko Blue Point No.3 (high output) MC cartridge works very well with the Pro-Ject Tube Box DS2 phono pre-amplifier.

The digital front end really depends on which amplifier you select; the Evo 150 has a hi-res streamer and very good DAC inside.

The Unison Research will require something like the Cambridge Audio MXN10 as a starting block for your Spotify, Qobuz, and TIDAL subscriptions.

One advantage of the Evo 150 is that one can add the Evo CD transport if you have a large CD collection.

The Sound

Bold. Textured. Midrange resolution that puts a lot more expensive loudspeakers to shame.

The Ryan R610s are for people who desperately want to imagine that the vocalist is in the room with them, but that has to include scale, imaging, and a very airy sounding treble that never gets hard.

You can play these loudspeakers quite loudly and the soundstage won’t collapse when things get very complex and you want to feel the impact of the piano or bass guitar.

I’ve spent well over 200 hours listening to the Ryan R610’s in my den (16′ x 13′ x 9′) and I’m under 10 feet from the front of the loudspeakers. I’ve never felt the need to turn the volume up past conversation levels and thought that I’m losing anything. With a warm sounding amplifier, these loudspeakers can be downright spooky good.

If you listen to techno, synth-pop, classical, jazz, blues, and pop — these speakers can create some very memorable moments. Not ideal for heavy metal; I’ve run AC/DC, Iron Maiden, and Metallica through them and it never really made my heart race.

The No. 19

Don’t ask. Just eat. Definitely not kosher. I will deny ever eating in this L.A. establishment. Someone had to do it. So much flavor. So much humanity.

Ryan R610 Speakers ($2,000/pair)

Cambridge Audio Evo 150 Network Player

or

Unison Research Simply 845 Integrated Amplifier

Cambridge Audio MXN10 Network Player