Looking for speaker recommendations that I can purchase on Amazon.com


Budget: under US$5000 and would prefer a price point of less than $3000/pair. The most expensive speakers I have owned so far are Polk RTi A7's, so this will be a big jump for me.

Purpose: music

Room: I tend to move every few years, so I don't want speakers that will work best only with very specific room conditions. Currently, I will be using these in a medium size room of about 22 feet x 18 feet. The room has carpet and window treatments.

Music sources: CD's, lossless music files stored on computer and MP3's when that's all I have available. I don't ahve any SACD's yet, but I plan on purchasing more high quality music once I have this system set up.

Music styles: acoustic, Indian classical (sitar, srangi, flute), alternative rock (Portugal. The Man, Sleeping with Sirens, etc.), older rock (e.g., Rush).

The speakers should sound good playing the Tanpura (aka Tambura). It is a classical Indian accompaniment instrument in the "drone" category. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanpura) Example of sound here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7tlqXix_eo
With bad equipment that sound is fatiguing to me. Live it is beautiful and relaxing. Hopefully I can find speakers that will do it justice.

Personal Preferences: I am looking for non-fatiguing, warm, musical qualities. In another discussion topic here on this forum, @mtrot and I agreed about "smooth, sweet, soft, silky treble" and "shimmery, airy cymbals" as goals.

Amplifier: Yamaha P5000S

DAC: to be determined, but probably something like the Teac NT-503

Finally, the speakers of choice must be sold on Amazon.com, Bestbuy.com (or possibly some other similar retail website). I have personal reasons for this limitation. It isn't always true that I will need to buy all my speakers or audio gear from one of these sites, but for the moment, it is a requirement. Please don't recommend anything that isn't available on one of these sites. Thanks.

lowoverdrive

Showing 5 responses by clarinetmonster2

LS50 as well as the R series are rolled off in the highs a bit, so polite - yes, bright no.
I'll add a couple recs I like on Amazon:
Dali Opticon 6 or 8
Martin Logan Motion 60xt
Alta Audio Rhea

I also like the Tannoy and Elac recs above - I like the real Elacs with the Jet tweeters better than the Andrew Jones lines personally. I would scratch the SF Chameleon off the list - there are much better options in this thread.

mofojo

I had the same experience as you with LS50 - the W's are better and probably a decent buy at their price but still not my taste. I may get flamed for this opinion but if ever a speaker could sound too polite and slightly sterile at the same time, for me these are it. 
The Elacs on Amazon I would have recommended, (the FS407) seem to be "temporarily out of stock". All the Elacs in the FS line to me are the real Elacs, made in Germany with in-house designed drivers. The Andrew Jones stuff is their China line.
If you want to put a pair of Sonus Faber on your list, the Venere line sounds much better than the Chameleon line, if the looks are ok for you. Either the Venere 2.5 or 3.0 fit into your proposed budget. The Venere S are 5k but are supposedly the only model in the line actually built in Italy vs China.