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
@gnason Thanks for the suggestion. I have been hearing good things about B&W speakers. But aren't the CM10 S2 an older model?  Maybe discontinued?

I thought the B&W's to look at now were the 700 (or 800) series. Probably, I'm confused. All this is new to me.

I was looking at some B&W in the 700 series, and several reviews said the 705's were the best. BestBuy has those at about $2500/pair.

I'm still considering these below, which I can find at either Amazon or BestBuy:

  • KEF R900
  • MartinLogan Motion 60XT
  • MartinLogan - ElectroMotion Dual 8" Passive 2-Way Floor Speaker
  • Dali Opticon 8
  • Alta Audio Rhea
  • TANNOY Revolution XT 8F
  • Focal Electra 1038Be
  • Elac (not sure which model)
Agree with previous poster regarding the Emotiva Airmotiv T2's. Haven't seen reviews on them yet (relatively new) but there are ample reviews on the T1's. I own the T2's and have been quite pleased. FWIW free shipping and a trial period come with the purchase. The T1's are sold on Amazon
Some are asking why would somebody buy on Amazon...maybe the OP like myself gets all these Bonus Points for using an Amazon Credit Card. If you pay off your CC Bill every month its Free money so might as well use it on some mid level audio gear/speakers.  Other than KEF it doesnt look like any other HIGH END (10K+) Speakers are available so I will have a long wait saving up for those!!
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.