Speakers for the real world. Placement problems.

Matrix -

I don't know of any speaker that meets all of your criteria!

You see, there are tradeoffs between bass extension and efficiency that make it fairly difficult to find a 92 dB efficient speaker that truly goes deep in the bass within your price ballpark.

Speking of tradeoffs, in general small speakers do the soundstaging thing well, while big speakers do the bass/efficiency thing well. Getting both, once again, is fairly expensive.

And while there are technologies that make a speaker very forgiving of placement, they are also generally outside of your price ballpark, and don't include any 92 dB efficient speakers, to the best of my knowledge.

So, let me ask you a few of questions.

First, what exactly are the problems you anticipate as far as speaker placement? Boomy bass? Early sidewall reflections?

Second, if you can't have both deep bass and fairly high efficiency, what kind of balance is acceptable to you - in other words, what are you willing to trade off?

As far as soundstaging goes, are you looking for superb imaging for one person, or pretty good imaging over a wide sweet spot?

Best of luck to you.

Matrix -

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions above.

Okay, I spent some time going over what's available used at this site.

My first suggestion would be the Paragon Regents speaker. The Paragons were a superb line that went out of business. They used lead-lined enclosures and so are quite heavy, but the sound quality is excellent. Efficiency is quite good and they are among the most relaxing box speakers made. As I recall they use the 3/4" Dynaudio tweet, which would give an exceptionally wide sweet spot, but I may be wrong. I can't say for sure that they are exceptionally forgiving of positioning, but the bass is nice & tight which is better than boomy if you have to place them near a wall. There's a pair of Regents on sale now for $1500 plus shipping (the company name is mis-spelled as "Parragon").

If by any chance there's some stretch in your budget, consisder the Audio Artistry Vivaldi's. These genuinely are very room-friendly, being a dynamic dipole. Dipoles put significantly less energy into room bass modes, and so their bass quality is much less dependent on room acoustics. There's a pair for $2500.

There are also several Audio PHysic speakers for sale here. Their tweeter has exceptionally wide dispersion, which helps to give them a very wide sweet spot. They tend to be a bit on the warm side, so they may not be the best choice for placement close to a wall.

And finally, there's a pair of TDL "M" studio monitors. These transmission line speakers have very natural-sounding midrange and bottom end, and their tight bass should work well close to a wall. This is another very fine company that sadly went out of business, and this pair is a steal at the posted price. If you liked the Meadowlarks, then the TDL's are worth considering.

I hope these suggestions help.

Best wishes,

Duke