Speaker advice?

Any particular reason that you are looking so closely at Creek? I've only heard one Creek rig. It sounded good enough, but when I researched them their specs didn't seem to indicate that the amps would have much guts.

I know that specs don't mean everything, but even taking the specs on the Creek amp at face value doesn't instill much confidence for me.

I tend to like an amp with some guts so that I, at the least, feel comfortable knowing that'll they drive any speaker that will fit into the room I'll be using.

For the price of the Creek, I just think that you could do better, especially on the used market.

As for the speakers that you've mentioned, I haven't owned either, but have heard both. The Dynaudios were nice to me. Really, nothing stood out, which I believe is a good thing.

With the KEFs, I just didn't get why so many are so excited about them.

10X10 isn't much space and it's going to be pretty easy to put too much speaker into that room. Just about any listening you're going to be doing is going to be near field. Maybe you should be considering something along the lines of the Peachtree D4 or D5 or perhaps the Silverline Minuets. All are very small speakers that have really big sound. In a room the size of yours, you may not even want or need a sub, depending on your taste in music.

As for as the electronics go, I listened to a little NAD integrated. 326BEE, I think it was. It sounded really nice. It just didn't have enough power for me, but I have a much bigger room than you do.

I'll agree with Schubert on the Minuets. My last pair of speakers were system audio SA505s. They did acoustical and jazz very well, but didn't do rock very well at all. I got the Minuets and they do produce a very satisfying sound with jazz and such, but they also do rock very well.

What I like the most about the Minuets is that they are very forgiving with regard to placement.

If you're considering the Studio 20s, I'd strongly suggest that you check out the Studio 10s as well. Yes, the 20s are larger and they go a bit lower, but the 10s sounded much better. The mid range was just more pleasing to my ears.

In a room the size of yours, I don't think it's going to make much of a difference, but the 20s do play a tad bit louder.

Just want to mention that my last pair of speakers was the Studio 10 and I moved those in favor of Minuet Supreme Plus. The Minuets had more body and were much more transparent.

I'm not saying that the Paradigm stuff doesn't sound good, because it does. I'm a big fan of Paradigm stuff, but the Minuets just sounded better in my setup. The Paradigms are also going to be a bit more fussy about setup.

The best way that I can describe the bass from the Minuet is that it does what it can do very well, but it doesn't go low.

Although Silverline specs the Minuet Supreme Plus as having a frequency range of 55hz-28khz, what it will do in your room depends a lot on the room.

Funny thing...out of curiosity I downloaded an audio file that is supposed to allow you to test the frequency range of your audio system. It simply starts out with a 10hz tone and gradually progresses up through the frequency range in 10hz increments. At each 10hz increment, there is a voice over telling you what frequency it was that was just playing. The idea is to take note when you hear/feel your speakers reproducing a tone and that is the lower end of your frequency range.

When I ran the file, I noted a rumble that I felt and a tone that I could hear at 30hz, so according to that test the little Minuets will reach down to 30hz, although the test doesn't indicate how many decibels you're giving up at that frequency. I've gotta guess that since Silverline specs the speaker down to 55hz, it rolls off pretty quickly at just before that. My guess is around 60hz. Just for reference, when I run my little REL T3 sub, I have its crossover set at 50hz. It blends nicely.

In real life use, when no one is home and I pull the Minuets off of the shelves in the entertainment center where they usually reside and put them on some real stands and place them about two feet from a rear wall and about that same distance from the side walls, I can listen to most music without the use of a sub and get a very satisfying sound out of it. The minuets ability to do what they can do so well sort of masks the fact that they don't go low.

I'm relatively new to the Minuets. I've been talking them up lately because they are the first speakers I've tried that worked for me and they've done everything I've wanted them to. The fact that they are so inexpensive just makes them all that much better to me.

Due to my space limitations, I've been looking for speakers that would do well on shelves in an entertainment center. I've tried System Audio SA505s, Paradigm Studio 10s, B&W 685s, the small Spendors (or maybe it was the Harbeths) and a couple of others and none of them allowed me to over come the limitations that I had to overcome and give me a good sound.

I'm not trying to say that the Minuets are the best speakers out there, because I have a suspicion that anyone of those other speakers that I tried could best the Minuets, if I could have accommodated them by way of placement and room treatments. Really, I think that they should be able to do that considering that they all cost more than the Minuets. In some cases two to three times as much.

What I am saying is that the Minuets play bigger than you would think and that they are very forgiving. You can make them sound better with ideal placement, but I've been hard pressed to make them sound bad, no matter where I put them.

Just as a reference, I'm running the Minuets in a 2800 cubic foot room which has open walls that open into other rooms. Yes, I'm pushing the Minuets, probably way beyond that for which they are intended; but they do get my foot tapping nonetheless.

The Supreme Pluses go for $700 a pair brand new. I've seen the original Minuets go for between $300 and $400. The Supremes and Pluses go for between $400 and $500, generally.

If you can snag a pair used, and then don't like them, you can likely get your money back out of them.

If you're gonna buy new and around $700 is your budget, I think you'd be hard pressed to do better.

Do a search on the net. Many reviews are out there.