Speaker Recommendations for Soundstage and Imaging

Have to agree with Fsonicsmith, in many cases adding a sub doesn't improve the performance of the system - though it may give you more bottom end sound.

It is very difficult to successfully combine/integrate a sub with many speakers, there is a lot more to it than just adding a completely seperated octave or 3.

There are a lot of bad subs on the market for true high performance two channel listening, though there are a ton for HT performance (that suck in 2-channel).

Integrating a sub to a pair of speakers is extremely difficult and the comment that just putting a sub in a pre-determined "dead" space conveys the lack of understanding of what it takes to properly implement subs.

I say this from experience owning several different subs and brands (REL, B&W, Velo, Wilson, Totem, etc. . .) and many different speakers (Wilson 3 models, VonS, Totem 3 models, Thiel, MLogan 2 models, B&W 3 models . . .).

While I am not saying subs are a bad idea, I am saying that they are not and should not be an automatic. When they are used, expect to pay easily the price the OP has listed for his pair of speakers and plan to spend many hard listening days, lots of moving the sub, lots of adjustment to gets things to be as good as possible/right.

MBL and other omnidirectional speakers can present huge sound stages. I have spent a fair amount of time with the mbl and would agree completely with mapman's comments as to the overall stage size.

It should be noted though that this is definately a different type of sound stage than most are accustomed to. With this huge and encompassing stage, my experience is that the focus is handled in a much different sense.

So it is an issue of do you want a huge encompassing stage (very appealing) at the expense of focus (ie. seeing/hearing a hard physical location of a specific performer clearly delineated in space). This of course is a personal preference. I love the sound of mbls, but miss the focus of other "good imaging" speakers that present a possibly less enveloping stage but give better (more precise) focus of the individual elements. I am not familiar with the Ohms!

Some would say and I partially agree that when properly set up, the Logans give you a good combination of stage and focus (I have owned logans and agree to some point with this).

I find Wilsons give you a pretty good total overall stage envelopment and very good focus. I know a lot of people claim to not like Wilsons and this is not a straight out plug for them, just a general comment on soundstaging, imaging, focus, etc. . .

Corazon, Maybe your last paragraph explains the differences in sense of staging/imaging/focus better than I could, and much more economically (wordwise).

Mapman, I have not had many chances to audition or hear speakers with 12-15 feet behind them (a few times with big horn systems). That must have been and certainly sounds like it was a great experience and peformance.

Maybe if I put my kids up for adoption and knocked down some walls that would be a feasible approach!