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Bookshelf Bake Off

Fellow Audiogoners,

Lend me your ears.  I live on a farm in South Georgia and have a 3+ hour drive in any direction to audition anything.  The price I pay for land, peace and horses I suppose.  I am putting together a secondary system and can't audition everything I have interest in, so I am hoping you can help me shorten the short list to a manageable set of maybe three (two would be even better) auditions for bookshelf speakers. They will be driven by 2 x PS Audio M700 Monoblocks, Schiit Freya+ tube preamp and a Mytek Brooklyn DAC+.  The space is fairly small at approx. 10'x20'.  For a number of reasons, floorstanders are not a possibility, hence the call for bookshelf speakers.  I would like to keep the budget in the $2K range, +/- a reasonable %.  I am not someone that feels the need to max the budget, i.e. linear correlation of price and quality, so feel free to suggest high value brands/models less than the max budget.  I have a pair of Focal Aria 906 in another system and very much like their sound, but want something a bit warmer with similar (or better) resolution.  Deeper low frequency extension would be a plus.  The brands I have narrowed the field to are:

Revel
Legacy
KEF
Monitor Audio
Sonus Fabre
PSB

This list is not written in stone, just my initial list after research.  Feel free to suggest anything I have omitted that warrants consideration.  Thanks in advance for your ears.

Mark


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pgaulke60
299 posts
 
Mark,

Let me know when you are in Atlanta and I will introduce you to a couple of folks that will change your listening experience immensely.  
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markcdaniel OP
45 posts
 
@pgaulke60 As luck would have it, I will be in Atlanta tomorrow.
mnjams
5 posts
 
If you haven't already you should try your Aria's in the room. What you like in one room isn't necessarily what you'll like in another.
vecter
1 posts
 
You might want to give Buchardt audio a try with their S400 model. You can try in your home for 30 days and if you don't like it they will pay the shipping back. Anyway, you can look at their website:
https://www.buchardtaudio.com/  for more details. 
thehorn
111 posts
 
I’m with glennewdick, ProAc D2 are a great reference.

Although grinnell is bang on the numbers too, Reference 3A de Capo i’s are easy to drive and have a superb frequency response. I put them 2nd only because they vent out the rear which makes them a little less versatile.

jsautter is also correct bringing up ATC, a very reputable speaker, especially their active speakers. Fellow audio buffs have criticize their passive speakers as really hard to match appropriate upstream components to.

One speaker that’s getting ink in these parts, and they’re only $1500 bucks, is the Vincent LS208’s. The German’s tend to know what they’re doing, personally I can’t vouch for them, but like I said, they’re getting ink.
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