Newbie needs advice for upgrade.

what kind of music do you like to listen too and how is your listening room laid out?
what kind of budget to you have to work with?

Thanks all for your input. I appreciate the kind words and outpouring of advice! I have to say that I didn't expect such a quick response from the board.

Several of you have suggested near field active monitors, and this is something that I've considered but what about the "near-field" part? Some time ago, I had a pair of powered Event TR-8 monitors that I used for DJing, but unfortunately I had to sell them. I enjoyed them quite a bit, but they didn't seem to project very well as "general listening speakers" as much as near-field reference monitors.

Rleff asked:
"what kind of music do you like to listen to..."

I primarily listen to various genres of electronic music, including beat-driven styles, ambient and experimental electro-acoustic as well as instrumental rock, but I've been slowly getting into contemporary classical and jazz and singer/songwriter stuff. If you have some suggestions for speakers based on the kind of music, I'm intrigued.

"...and how is your listening room laid out?"

The room is a coupled space nightmare. It's a kitchen and living room in one that measures 23x12' that is open to a room/hallway/office with odd dimensions at about a quarter of square footage. There is an open doorway and open wall/window thing that joins the two spaces. The space feels good because it's so open, but...

After thinking about this a bit more, I suppose that the amount of air displacement required for this cavern is simply not to be expected of these little Missions, let alone a pair of studio monitors. Am I mistaken? Is it a matter of tweaking parameters and levels on some more in-line gear? I don't want to color the sound too much.

Bob_reynolds asked:

"Does your Rega integrated amp have both preamp out and main amp in jacks? If so, then you should be using a high pass filter in front of your main speakers so they don't have to handle bass. That's the sub's job"

YES, it does. Is the filter something that can be run in-line between the sub and mains, or is this something that the sub should be designed to handle? This sub has one, but it still allows a considerable amount of low mids through that are distorting the little 5 inchers. Perhaps the issue here is the lack of synergy in the speaker system as was mentioned by Jrinkerptdnet.

Recording studio monitors are not large stage or musician monitors. Their purpose is different.

You've seen the smaller, sealed off studios where the recording engineers sit in front of large mixer boards? There's usually 2-3 pairs of different monitors in their "sound rooms".

At 4-8 feet or so, near-field monitors attempt to provide perfect sound reproduction in a smaller "sound room" for recording engineers. Within this smaller sound envelop, they mix tracks accurately to sound best on the vast majority of speakers in the market. They use 2-3 different types of studio monitors to help get the best possible final mix.

Here is a thought - try to find used Energy Veritas 1.8 (or others but the 1.8's were very good) and then get something like a Bryston 4B ST used to drive them. But watch out the neighbors may complain about the noise...so you had better invite them over!