Monitors vs Floorstanders

There are few truly great monitors....and even fewer world class floorstanders...before you "blow your wad" on REVELS...which I have heard....check out Green Mountain Europas at $800

I feel pretty strongly that the M20's strong benefits in midrange neutrality, soundstaging abilities, and neutral (can be bright in a lively room) top octave make it a superb choice, and far better than the cheap-for-the-pound 60s. You may sacrifice some of the bottom octave whomp non-acoustic music, but you can add a fast sub if necessary.
The M20 will play plenty loudly in all but the bottom octave, and will be outstanding in the nearfield, too, where your 60's become incoherent. OTOH you can eventually find a pair of F30 around $2k...not that much more than the M20. The problem might be that soundstage and bass-balance requirements might clash. For my secondary (HT) system I use a Spendor front trio with a fast Boston PV1000 sub.
Perhaps a good fast sub and the M20s might offer the best combo, at roughly the same expense. Good Luck.

I run a Arcam Alpha 9 CD through a B&K Ref20 pre/pro and use the Arcam's internal Ring Dac. I use the Ref20 for HT decoding. The Stratos amp powers the main speakers and I have a NAD 5 channel amp running the center and two surrounds.

I know that the Monitors will do well as HT fronts but will they play as well (with excellent clarity AND volume) as my Studio 60 floorstanders when I want to listen to just stereo music?

I feel the B&K Ref20 and the Arcam Alpha 9 are keepers in my system. Just curious if the switch to monitors would be a wise one for stereo useage over larger floorstanders.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Joe

My suggestion is to consider the M20's set to "small" on your pre/pro, letting the sub handle the bass for LOUD ROCK,TECHNO,MOVIES, ETC! You'll get much more dynamic range and dynamic ability running this way, as opposed to running even the modest Pardigm 60's full range!...no contest.
Depending on the rest of your system, you may have a 2 channel pre running things full range for music. YOu would, in this case, sacrifice(maybe) some sonic purity by using a digital pre/pro and crossover for 2 channel, but depends. Even if so, it's way worth the benefit if your system needs more dynamic headroom and efficiency! And if you want to run your M20s full range for less ambitious levels and music, you'll loose nothing there.
For movies, you need a crossover and sub set up anyway!...even if your'e running larger Studio 100's, you should be crossing em over as "small", and letting a sub do the bottom! Dynamically, the 60's wont' hang run full range for DD/DTS movies anyway. YOu have to run em as "small" for best dynamic efficiency.
Yep, if it were me, and I had those two choices, I'd do M20's running full range for some music with a better 2 channel pre set up, and as "small" with heavy dynamic/louder level chores running from the digital pre/pro for movies and rock and such!
In that smaller room you would do just fine with a 5 channel set up. If you picked up a used krell HTS 5.1 pre/pro, and excellent amp to compliment, you'd have simply steller capability sonically! (The Krell is the best sounding DD/DTS 5.1 pre/pro you'll find for reasonable money used right now). YOu could pick up a used tube preamp and loop your digital av pre/pro through it for movie dubties..then simply use the 2 channel pre/pro for full range music dubties. Again, then with harder dyanmic stuff and movies, you could kick on the pre/pro and play everything as "small" plus a sub!
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