Do my ears deceive me??


     The money is in the bank, thinking of upgrading speakers, but everything I demo is no better or worse than what I have.   Willing to spend up to $6,000.      Upgraditis??   My main system is Mcintosh MX 134 that I bought in 2003, with a pair of Focal 836v's and a Parasound 5250  (250w/channel) amp I bought around 2012.   I either blew the tweeters or crossover on my 836's, so they are in for repair.   Since I've owned them for 10 years, I was considering new speakers.    The blades are way more than I would spend, but I also demoed the Kef R11s, Martin Logan xtf 200's, Mcintosh XR 100s, and B&W 703 S3.   

       None of them sounded better than what I'm hearing right now from my BP 2006s.    Would I really need to demo them in my room to make a fair comparison??  Or are speakers just not much better than they were 20 years ago?   I know I love detail, and tend to lean towards aluminum tweeters.  I pretty much only listen to classic rock and roll.   Of all I demoed, I really like the B&W 706s.   They sounded much brighter/cleaner than the others.   But they had the reciever set up so I couldn't adjust the treble/bass.  I love a V equalizer curve, and bump up the bass and treble a bit on my home/car systems.   Maybe I just have the good luck of prefering cheaper speakers.   

 

  

fenderu2

Seems like the OP is looking for a hot speaker with plenty of bass.  Head scratcher that he’s considering bookshelf Harbeths maybe thinking augmenting the bass w subwoofer?  Agree that GoldenEar may be a top option.  

Maybe not related but the HiFi Rose RS520 integrated has a built in equalizer.  

Well, it's gonna be $600 to fix my Focals.  2 woofers and 2 tweeters.   Seems quit spendy, but I'm going ahead with it.   I know the dealer is kind of screwing me, but I didn't see any other way to fix them.   Didn't really have a way to figure out what was wrong on my own, nor a way to buy replacement drivers.   If I can get another 5 to 10 years out of them, I'm ok with it.