Monitors $1,000 to $2,000?

ATC SCM 12, because it has better bass, mids and highs than any speaker in its price class, although I will caution you that tubes will not 1. be needed to smooth the sound and 2. be good enough to drive these speakers in a larger room.

The ATC 7" Mid/woof driver completely out classes the L17 Seas driver in the Joseph and the the Monitor Audio's are not as good as the Joseph.

Biggest draw back to ATC SCM-12 is the 8-10 dealers that carry the product line. They will likely be hard to find in your area. At the moment no speaker company is putting out better valued speakers than ATC, the SCM7 at $1K, 12 @ $2K and the SCM35 at $4K.

Others to look at, Dynaudio, C1.1, Aud72, New PSB Platinum

Thanks for your reply... looking at this again it should have been in the discussion area... next time I'll get it right and will post my reviews as this post continues to keep on track. Thanks!

The Monitor 10's are killer. I loved them with my audio refinement integrated. Don't forget to look at Revel M20's in the used market.

Kahana,

I'm using Green Mountain Europa's with a Jolida 502A, and the sound is fantastic. In my opinion, the Europa is a real sleeper of a monitor, and the technology and parts are way better than the competition at its price point.

The Europa's use a Morel soft dome tweeter and an Aurisound woofer. Internal wiring is Audio Magic silver wire to the tweeter, and cryo'd Jena Labs copper to the woofer. The enclosures are cast marble and virtually non-resonant. In terms of speed, precision, and detail, these speakers are unmatched in my listening experience. I used to have Martin Logans, and switching to these speakers only improved on the qualities I like about the ML's. These speakers sound a lot like electrostats in the mid-range and treble. Bass is very good as well. The lows begin to roll off at around 45-50hZ, but what's there is very tight and clean. If you'll be using a sub, you really will get an excellent, full-range sound.

The Europa's are also time and phase aligned, with a recessed baffle that uses quite a bit of felt around and between the drivers. Crossover is a simple first-order design using a high-quality Solen capacitor.

As you can probably tell, I'm really enamored with these speakers. I have no connection to Green Mountain Audio, I just feel like these speakers are an incredible value. Especially with the all-tube Jolida, the sound is really terrific. Smooth and pure as you could ever want. Not overly lush or warm, but very musical and sweet. I listen to mostly jazz and classical, with some blues thrown in, and this type of music is very well served with these speakers. You can check out the rest of my system in the Virtual Systems.

At the very least, you should give these great speakers a listen. You might be surprised!

Happy listening,
Eric