Speaker Ideas upto $2500

Tvad,

I understand your points, and I did not mean to come off as negative or dismissive. But I sure that you will agree that of all the collective parts involved an audio system, speakers are the hardest to blindly recommend and make any assumptions regarding how they will actually sound to the individual audiophile.

Unlike (or more than) other components, speakers are "alive" in the sense that they interact with the room, the other gear, the music and the listener. I can understand and appreciate that Hapaknack is looking for suggestions, but in my opinion there are simply too many variables in the slection process for a speaker to allow any of us to provide the guy with any really useful information that will provide an accurate idea how any of our recommendations will actualy sound in his environment.

And if we can't do that, what's the point? It seems to me that, if we are providing a random sampling of opinion, any starting point is as good as any other. The guy might as well pick up a copy of Audio Advisor or look on stereophile.com.

Referee time! Ok so lets clear up a couple things. I do not have the amp or the speakers chosen yet. I merely indicated an example of an integrated amp because that is what I intend to mate to the speakers regardless of speaker choice, to keep my amp budget in line. I started with the druids because of the 6moons review and the positive reviews on this site.

Have I listened to them in person, no. I was hoping to get a couple of points of reference to start my actual listening test with from this post.

Am I looking for a sub? Only if the speaker suggested clearly sound like its missing that last octave.

The point about room dimensions is good because that helps me know what rooms the speakers recommended will perform well in and vice versa. I haven't given the room dimensions because I will be moving in a couple of months so I don't want to shoot myself in the foot, but needless to say they will probably be in a small to medium room. Right now I am in a small loft, with hardwood floors and 20 ft ceilings. However, this will all change...

Another critical point is that I don't live near any places where I can easily audition. I have to drive quite a while to get to the nearest audiophile store.....so I am trying to plan this out as best as I can. Does this long winded post clarify anything?

FOR MY MONEY (emphasized so no one yells at me), the best bang for the buck speakers i've heard are paradigms, particularly the studio series. they're not particularly WAF-fy (wife acceptance factor), but they sound awesome in a lot of systems and rooms.

you might be very happy with a pair of studio 60s (around $1000 used, forget how much new) and it's very possible you could feel that you don't need a sub (i believe they go down to 29). i haven't heard a speaker that retails for less than 4k that i prefer to them, but, as always, you may dislike them intensely, who knows.

or you could always go mental and get a pair of studio 100s and a sub. or two subs. then your neighbors could enjoy your system with you.

as far as subs go, i'm a big fan of REL.