Your ''best kept secret'' speaker choice ?

They may be wide but you can still find used pairs between $200-500, and you will be hard-pressed to find better sounding new speakers today for under $3000.

Most obscure, but very impressive, speakers that I have heard are Induction Dynamics. However, as good as they are, at their price point, I still feel that they can be bested by more well known names (such as Thiel, of whom I am a big fan).

A name that is not so obscure, but which I hadn't heard until recently is ProAc. I just heard a pair of their Tablette Reference 8's, and just could not believe that speakers that small could sound so good, or that I could find such warmth and detail in the same package. Even though I wasn't really in the market for a pair of small speakers, I ended up ordering a pair of the Tablette Reference 8 Signatures on the spot. And again, as a Thiel fan, that is saying a lot! Of course, Thiel doesn't offer anything as small as the little ProAcs (they are much smaller than even the SCS3's).

Tom.

Quad L-Series --- too much press in Britain not any in North America. These briallantly finished beautiful very revealing speakers with a gorgeous midrange - just seem ignored. Competitive far beyond their price point - WAF is very very high :) And I love my 21Ls in Piano Black to pieces :)

Anyone considering B&W or Paradigm in the same pricepoint as the Quad's should get their head checked.

I also would like to recommend the Reimer speakers. I have the Teton GS full range speakers and they sound incredibly good and are a tremendous value.

The little Maggie MMG should be outlawed. Banned. Verboten. Interdict. Kapu. No $550 a pair speaker has any business sounding that damn good.

And those Quad 57's still floating around - geeze, let's get 'em off the market already. Their time is over - we don't need their stinkin' lovely midrange to remind us how little progress in that area has been made in the last upteen years.

Finally, somebody ought to shoot John Wolff of Classic Audio Reproductions. He uses genuinely world-class drivers in superb boxes, and sells 'em direct for about twice what the drivers alone cost. I don't see how he's making any money. Okay, maybe he's making ten to fifteen percent. But how in the world is anybody supposed to compete with that? Fortunately for the rest of us who sell audio gear, almost nobody has heard of John Wolff or Classic Audio Reproductions. And even fewer people know that Ralph Karsten of Atma-Sphere uses CAR speakers as his references, in his own home.

I sure hope nobody reads this far down in this thread, because the last thing a dealer like me needs is more people buying MMG's, Quad 57's, and Classic Audio Reproductions speakers. Sheesh.