Speakers for electronic/hiphop/rnb [$4000 range]?

Hey! I listen to loads of electronic, some good indie hip hop (stones throw..), trap, reggae, dubstep... Lots of overlap with your likes!

I’m using rbh speakers, 1266se/r. They’re pretty freaking amazing. I can run them very loudly and they stay clear and tight. But, like everyone says, it’s all about synergy between components and speakers. For instance, my speakers are 4 ohm and need lots of power to drive the 12". So I went with class D amps. Your integrated is 50 w, so you’ll want to stick with very sensitive speakers. I wouldn’t worry so much about what type of music you listen to, though. It will matter for certain choices, but if you work on assembling a system that is reasonably flat, all music will sound good.

I’ve read the pendragons sound great with moderate power.. But that’s only reviews. I’ve never actually heard them. So either do what you can to listen to as many different speakers as possible or read a bunch and then take a gamble. Speakers are harder to buy and sell used though, just because of their size and weight.

Good luck and have fun!

Ah... If you’re setting up a completely new system, that opens many possibilities. Greg basically covered all that’s important without throwing his opinion in, which is commendable. An option for you not yet mentioned would be floorstanding speakers with integrated powered woofers/subs. This will let you choose an amp without crazy power..

Like I said above, I listen to similar musical styles. The route I chose to go was class D monoblocks putting out 500w/channel into 4 ohm 3 way floorstanders that are reasonably flat to 30hz. My room is small enough I could have gone with less power and smaller speakers, but I like to immerse myself in the sound and feel the mids/bass but have enough power and control to hear clean highs over all of that..

Not trying to sway you my way, just giving you an example of what works. Before the monoblocks, I had a class D crown that was a beast and sounded great for just a few hundred bucks. It’s a good solution if you blow all your cash on badass, power hungry speakers, then realize your 80 w/channel integrated amp isn’t going to cut it. Ask me how I know... :-)

The golden ear tritons are exactly the speakers I was thinking of! 

Greg does have a point, though. But it is a generalization and will not always be true. Though it often is. His point is that speaker manufacturers probably aren't hiring the best amp designers out there. So the amps in powered speakers probably aren't going to be super cutting edge.

But the tritons seem like they may be an exception to the generalization.