Speaker recommendation please, please, please


Thanks in advance.

I'm new here, really and a relative noob on the high-end audio.

Looking to upgrade my front speakers for now. My use is probably 60% audio, 40% video. For my wife, you can invert those numbers.

My musical tastes run from Thelonius Monk to the Butthole Surfers. Krautrock, obscure '60's and '70's rock, fusion, jazz, electronica (The Orb, etc.). Very eclectic but mores rock than jazz or electronica. No classical/opera.

My system:
EAD Power Master 5200 5-schannel (300 watts 8ohm)

Musical Fidelity X-ray - the original ovoid design model

Pre-amp Krell - KRC 3

Speakers: B&W Nautilus 805's in the front CDM's in the rear and Nautilus HTM 1 center, Velodyne 12" 1200 watt sub (I forget the model offhand - top of the line 10 years ago as I recall)

For now I'd just like to upgrade the front two speakers. Eventually will upgrade the others as funds allow.

The room is rectangular 30' x 15' x 8' with wood floors

My ceiling to spend is approximately $6k

I'm considering used or new:

Evolution Acoustics MMMicro One
Raidho Eben X-3
Lawrence Audio Violin
Joseph Audio Pulsar
Gallo 3.5 Referance
VMPS RM30

Thoughts?

Anything else I should be looking at?

Auditioning is hard as I live in a very rural area but I could do a day trip to Tampa or Orlando if I could find a dealer for anything I'm looking at, which so far I can't (still working on that though)
seffren

Showing 1 response by david12

Something nowone has mentioned, integrating any new speakers with your existing BandW speakers. That will be a problem in the meantime.

One suggestion, take advantage of a lot of experience at Rocky Mountain this month. There are pages of reviews on dozens of rooms, mainly concentrating on the speakers, on the Audiocircle show review circle. There is no obvious commercial pressure there, which might lead a paper magazine to favour an advertiser. A lot of very good ideas I have picked up on, that I will try to follow up on, DC10, as already mentioned, Vapor, Odyssey audio. I personally use Daedalus and would very much recommend them, but as Roscoeiii says, people tend to recommend their current speakers, it's second nature.