budget speakers

Usher S520 is a good budget choice.. about 300-400 used

Owned the Rega Aras for a few years ... excellent smooth sounding small speaker. For a more revealing speaker in the same price category try the Energy RC10 or B&W 685.

Rich

Second the B&W 685...

Vinny

what power amp(s) or intregrated are you running with your speakers?

Most definitely no...entry level Paradigm offerings such as atom and titan are extremely rolled off...dont know if this is purposely to entice one to try their better monitor or studio series...at any rate...try athena as bi budget speaker...great detailed tweeter...behaves like a much more refined product...dynaudio 40 nice too....

Thanks for the suggestions, people.

Phasecorrect - i used to share your view of the atom in its original inception back in the day and have disliked paradigm since then...

I heard the atom v6 at kromer in Toronto, paired with marantz's new entry level integrated and entry level cd player. I noticed that the atoms were the most revealing of the speakers in that room (all in the same price bracket). Boston acoustics had some reasonably good speakers in the 330-350 dollar mark and so did Mordaunt-Short. However, the atoms seemed to pull out more detail, treble energy and air than the two aforementioned speakers. Believe me - i was shocked.

Having said that, maybe I should should try speakers from B&W and a few others that I 'don't like' as well. May be in for some pleasant surprises.

I have an offer for a pair of Epos M5's, but i'm not sure if those would fit the bill either.

for all i know, i should just spend my money on changing out flooring in my apartment, since i believe the carpet is what's actually sucking the life out of the music.

Monitor Audio Bronze 50 will deliver the clarity you're looking for without being overly bright as well as the best dynamics in their price range. Unlike most small speakers, they work best at least 5ft from the listener. Highly recommended.

I always thought paradigm measured their speakers in an anechoic chamber causing them to sound bright compared to most of the competition. When a buddy was looking for 'budget' speakers we compared mission,paradigm, and klipsch . the Klipsch were ear bleeders with the cheap electronics all these speakers were connected to, the paradigm's were probably the most balanced, but something about the mids from the British speakers made him select the Missions. That said 3 days later he returned the missions and bought a pair of dept store cerwyn vega at-12's. I really think paradigm works pretty hard to bring perceived value to their budget speakers.

Get an amp with tone controls and crank the treble knob...(problem solved...bright as fk is delivered...).

On the other hand, if you are looking for a highly revealing speaker on a constrained budget, get one of the GR Research speaker kits such as the NX studio kit and build it.

@deep_333 

That NX looks like a keeper!!

@blackbag20  Definitely a keeper for me!! I built it with the kit+flatpacks and it came out to 1500-ish dollars. It sounds immaculate with my luxman gear.... I just noticed that they've also started offering it as a fully finished speaker for 3k-ish dollars (must be a recent thing, https://gr-research.com/product/nx-studio-pair/). Even at 3k, i don't think there's any standmount speaker under 10k that comes close to this thing.

I would love to build that NX-treme 7 foot floorstander. But, my ceiling height is not gonna cut it.