Just recently sold off my second pair of speakers which I had stored up in an adjacent room (not part of a second(ary) system). I only have one setup and listening room, that’s it; one pair of main speakers + a pair of subs, and three stereo amps covering their respective driver segment as part of an active setup. No double up (or more) with the remaining gear - not even cables, though I have some additional lengths of Mundorf Silver/Gold interconnect wire, some RCA and Neutrik XLR and speaker connectors, plus a stereo length of Duelund tinned copper speaker cables that I used in a shotgun config. at one point.
I bought my current speakers 2nd hand (from a cinema in Germany) in a slightly different version with smaller horns on top than what I have now, really as an experiment into active configuration. By no means were they a random this-will-have-to-do choice; I knew the speakers, not least the MF/HF comp. driver very well from reputation in their pro cinema segment, and only had to add a third amp for the mid bass section (the digital XO and the rest I had already). I thus embarked on the active from-ground-up journey while still having my other pair of all-horn, passively configured speakers as a back-up. Eventually I replaced the MF/HF horns with their larger big-auditorium sibling (using the same comp. driver, which was orig. developed for use with the this larger horn), which fits with their mounting kit on the same bass bin as this was actually the original design intended with the larger horn.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Beautifully finished, handmade all-horn speakers, lovely as they were, gave their place to an industrial product, looking that as well. Some of my audio friends, prior to listening to my current speaker setup, uttered: "How could you do it??" The lament was obvious - that is, until listening had its say. Those Uccello’s (my previous speakers) were wonderful, though. Some of the best midrange I’ve ever heard, and I sorely miss their beautiful wood finish (that actually felt, looked and smelled like wood). Oh well..
