if ya like the maggies, take carl's advice & go for something sound-absorbent behind them, before buying new speakers. this will help them a lot, especially in a small room. regarding new speakers, other than the vandersteens, which i don't care for, i'd agree w/the others. there's a *ton* of speakers in this price range that are excellent. my personal choice would be to get small monitors on stands, instead of floor-standing speakers. you mite give up a few hz at the bottom, but this should not be much of an issue in a smaller room, & the *rest* of the sound will generally be better - better depth/soundstage/clarity, etc. for example, i really like the hot-rod kestrals, but i like the proac tablette signatures better. i'd *really* like to hear the proac sc1's! other monitor speakers i like are the aerials, the meret ankhs & re's (discontinued, sometimes available used), totems, & diapasons.
Best of the small speakers
I'm looking for a small, preferably floorstanding speaker that will integrate well with my current system and room. My main source is a California Audio Labs CL-20 DVD/CD player, through a Rotel RC-995 preamp, into a McCormack DNA 0.5 Deluxe (which will be upgraded to Revision B by Steve McCormack himself in the very near future). My current speakers are Magnepan 1.6QRs. While I absolutely love many of the Maggies traits, they don't seem to integrate well into my fairly small listening space. As far out from the wall as I can move them, about 30 inches, I still get what sounds to me to be a fairly ragged frequency response. For reference, I have pretty electic listening tastes, from baroque to bebop to bluegrass, but the majority of my music is fairly complex, with many simultaneous melodic or rhythmic lines, on both acoustic and electric instuments. Accurate, timbrally-true bass is more far more important to me than rattling the windows. Any suggestions for speakers roughly in the Maggie's price range ($1500-$2500) which you feel would fit well into my system would be appreciated. Just trying to narrow down my shopping list. One speaker which has drawn my attention is the Thiel CS 1.5s, but I know there must be others I am missing! Thanks in advance for the help!!!