I'm very inexperienced but I still try to observe things around me carefully. Here's what I'm getting at what can be potentially pretty good.. Well, all I can really say is I've been mostly interested in the design implementations of companies such as Maxxhorn or Cessaro. Here's what I've been following, great horns may actually not be the usual "flowery" type that curve outward or are too boxy/rectangular-ish, don't these along with smallness/tallness, weight, flexibility issues or whatever, create more distortion?...great horns go beyond the usual Lowther, Fostex driver deals... The "full range" approach seems to have SOME potential, I mean, I've read that they are not usually very high-end...but overall, the simplicity is great as an idea and probably can be used better in the right hands and minds. The round-ish, "bowl-ish" design of Cessaro or Romy's speakers catch my eye now.

You all see where I'm going with this? I'm still sort of just guessing, but I'm just saying what I'm most interested in. Me personally, I think I'd go for something like a Maxxhorn or Aspara Accoustics speaker along with Coincident's new low powered amp or whatever, if I had the money... Well for budget, I think a GR Research speaker and DAC, along with like a C.E.C. transport, McAlister SET amp, or something along those lines, would be pretty cool. This is coming from an inexperienced person, but still idea-experimenter, but I think I can get on to somethings at times, and anything that's good at a very low price, is actually like a fun thing, and probably would still sound great perfect-like to a lot of more-casual people trying to find good sound.

Without addressing your particular choice of brands, I suggest that you keep looking and listening to get an idea of what you want to hear in trerms of the sound itself and how that differs from what you are hearing or have heard.  We all have to start somewhere, but none of the  labels make real sense without a sort of mental blueprint, which IMO can be vague enough to simply reject what one does not like.  OTOH, it is very helpful to know what you want well enough to be able to "listen for it" and from there, with luck, try to determine, steer and refine a whole system into the sort of sound you want.  You are way ahead if you can get a speaker/amp/room pairing to build on.  At some point you just have to ante up and start working with a combination you think has enough good to merit working with it.  If you have the money for the big Cessarios, congratulations on a nice commercially-available place to start.  But you still need to have the idea first, IMO.

If you mainly want brand recommendations, I recommend Auido Assylum, or similar.  There are plenty of experienced audiophiles on these boards who will be happy to steer you along.

You will be amazed at how winding the road you will follow on others' recomendations.



Best regards,
Paul S