I have 3 cats, and KEF R500, driven by an NAD T758. The cats totally ignore the speakers, and they look great (to me) without the magnetic attached grills. They don't bother with the speakers even with the grills on, though if they did the grills would just fall off. I never cared for the PSB sound that much. It's just a little too laid-back and warm for me, and the contoured rubber covers over the mounting doesn't always seat right. The push-on grills leave ugly fixings when they're off. With a list of $2600 for the R500 though, you'd have to find used...or the dealer's demo product like I got. Came in under $2k.
$1000-$2000 Floor-standing speakers for larger room w/NAD 326bee
I’m looking for a set of floor-standing speakers for our main listening room. They will be 2 channel music only. They need to be "cat safe" (no fabric on front, or removable grills), able to fill a larger room (20x15 with vaulted ceiling) with decent volume (typical max listening level is 85-90db but a lot of listening is at low volume as well) and efficient enough for a NAD326BEE. Budget is ~$1000-$2000 for the pair. My old speakers in the room were open baffle design (Hawthorne Audio Duets) and I did like the relatively open sound stage they provided. I may move them to a different room or just sell them (they’re too wide for our current configuration in the room and they aren’t too high on the "cat safe" scale). I have a couple of Polk TSi400’s in the room now as "placeholders" until I decide on a permanent pair. Minimum distance between speakers is about 8-10 feet and listening position is about 10 feet from the speakers. The speakers will need to be within about of the wall behind them. The floor is carpeted.
Music is a mix of Jazz, Classic Rock and Classical and sources are turntable and streaming from a Roon server. I live in the Atlanta metro area and
I’ve been out of the speaker hunting game for a while so any suggestions would be very much appreciated!