Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site

Hi Samuel, I see that quite a few replies without much in the way of suggestions.  Romy will not give you what you want, ie. a shopping list of speakers to audition, but I will give you one or two recommendations that I think sound quite good in that price range.

1) Soundlab U1, A1 or M1.  All quite similar in size full-range electrostatic loudspeakers systems.  Superb transparency and low level resolution, good dynamics (only not great compared to  full horn system), uncolored, and utterly coherent (this is a big problem with ANY multidriver system)

2) Avantgarde Duo.  Does a reasonably good job of not sounding particularly "horny" while having superb transparency and dynamics.  Bass is only so so with the powered module.

3) Used Wilson X1 Grand SLAMM.  Not the best speaker but dynamic like a horn and less colored than most horns.  Use with good tube amps and it makes a superb sound (with 95db/watt sensitivity and an easy load 30 watts is probably sufficient in all but a large room).  For a "conventional" box speaker I haven't heard anything better.

4) Edgarhorn Titan

5) Apogee Grand.  IMO, there is simply not a better speaker system in the world today than an Apogee Grand.  It was $85,000 when new and worth every penny.  I have a friend with a pair in Germany and there is simply nothing I have heard that is better.  The trouble is finding one as they made only about 20 pairs.  For much less money and much less trouble finding one look at good used Apogee Divas, Scintillas, or Studio Grands.

6) Apogee Synergy.  Resurrected Apogee now located in Australia.  Their new model is like a Scintilla but now a much easier speaker to drive (95db/watt and 3 ohms).  This is probably one of the top 2 or 3 best panel speakers currently in the world (the others are the Soundlabs and the Analysis Audio Amphytron)

7) Analysis Audio Amphytron  another panel speaker and large (over 2meters tall).

8) Thiel CS 3.6.  Yes, I know its cheap on the used market and now discontinued (but only after like at 13 year production run) but IMO it is the best speaker Jim Thiel ever made and with good amps it is very convincing.  The coherency and transparency rival electrostats and it has sufficient punch to satisfy there as well.  With the money saved on the speakers one can think seriously about getting the very best in electronics (a whole other thread I think).

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site