Hear ye! Thou who knowist thy speakers..


All you speaker connoisseurs, your assistance would be greatly appreciated. I live near Yosemite Park in the Sierra Mountains of Northern California, so getting to enough high end audio stores to audition speakers is very difficult and time consuming. Steering me in the right direction will save me many days and hours of travel. I own a Meridian 508.24 CD player, Audio Research LS 16 pre-amp, Plinius SA 100 MKIII Amp. Nordost SPM interconnects on the Meridian and NBS Monitor IV interconnects on the pre-amp and amp. Black Mamba on the CD and NBS Monitor IV power cords on the rest. My current speakers are NHT 2.5i with either (I switch them occassionally) NBS Monitor IV (warmer) or JPS Superconductor+ (revealing) bi-wire speaker cables. For the money ($1300), the NHT 2.5i are the best speakers I've heard, but it's time to get a speaker that compliments the rest of my system. I'm willing to spend no more than $5,000 for used or new speakers. I do have them hooked-up to the DSS receiver and DVD (stereo), but I mainly listen to music. Classical, jazz, world beat, rock.. If it sounds good, I'll listen to it. Which speakers in your humble opinion should I focus on and why?
rosstaman

Showing 3 responses by rosstaman

Did I forget to mention my wife..."The speakers should look furniture not spaceships!" My livingroom is approximately 20'X 40' with high ceilings. I really liked the sound of the Dunlavy SC IV's, but they are a bit too tall.
Thanks, everyone. This has been very helpful. I've recently heard the Dynaudio 1.3 MK SE and couldn't believe the quality of sound coming from bookshelf size speakers. I'm off to San Diego for a few days and will audition some of your suggestions. I'll keep you posted.
FYI-I auditioned the Hales Revelation 3, ProAc 3.8, Dunlavy Aletha and SC IVa, Dynaudio Contour 1.3 MKII SE, Contour 3.3, Confidence 3 and 5, B&W 802, Maggies 3.6R and Martin Logen Prodigy. They all had their pluses and minuses. I was most disappointed with the Maggies. They were very transparent, but didn't have near the detail in the high frequency. The one speaker that made me smile was the Dynaudio Contour 3.3. The Dynaudio's were the nicest that I heard all around. The Confidence 5 was my second choice. Very true to the source, but I really liked the full range, tight bass and detailed sound from the Contour 3.3.s. Again, thanks for all your thoughts and advice.