great little speakers

I have the P3 in my main music system, and the Dynaudio Audience 50 in my home theatre system. Powered by Densen DM10 amp, Quad 77 CD player and Kimber 8TC cables. When I first replaced the Dyns with the P3s, I was struck by how much smaller and narrower the soundfield became.

But I decided to keep the P3s in the main system because there was more detail and I could hear more layers in the music. The P3s made it much easier to track different musical instruments and voices. They made music sound more immediate (and therefore exciting), too.

The Dyns, on the other hand, is more versatile - it works with a wider range of music. The dispersion range is bigger. For home theatre, the P3s are better with dialogue, but the Audience 50 are better with sound effects.

The best (and one of the smallest) "little speakers" that I have auditioned (and which I purchased for my office system) are the ProAc Tablette Reference 8 Signatures. I think that they do a great job of satisfying your goal of "cohorent, smooth, not over- analytical sound" in a very small, very tidy package. I also liked the Totem Model 1 Signatures, but I found the ProAcs to be more musically compelling.

Tom.

So willy what you end up buying?
One manufacturer overlooked in this thread and often in this forum is Dali. If you really want a "little speaker", the Royal Scepter is beautiful and has that great sound of the Menuet II but a bit more bass. It probably is available to you in Europe and more affordable then half the suggestions so far at 800.00 US.