Please recommend speakers

I have built in bookshelves. Over the years I have used a pair of front ported Mirage....a set of Guru....and Linn Sara Isobarik(current). All 3 without subs. All 3 had sufficient bass. I had to raise the Linns to actually decrease bass. All 3 had good dispersion. The Mirage also has 90% efficiency and can be found used for a few hundred or less. The Guru might cost a bit more used. The Linns maybe 500-800 depending on condition. My shelves have LPs and books as boundaries on the side within a couple inches, but it is amazing to me how well they each overcome this placement. You basically want a speaker that is at least as wide as it is deep, or a speaker that can be placed horizontally.

expresstrain, you might look at the front ported offerings from Elac:

I am considering the B6.2 or DBR62 for my workshop and/or living room/TV systems.  Both applications need the speakers pretty close to the wall.  Front ported should be better in an actual bookcase as mentioned before.

Tomic601

Hi Tomic601, 

I hope that you will receive notification with regards to this reply. I don't want to have the last word by you not being alerted. I don't have access to that circuit anymore, but for the heck of it I replaced the tweeters with Hiquphons, and, although they tapered off too soon, they sounded far better, with no honking which you were speaking of. I can't say about anything beyond the 2CE or was there a 2CEI? I thought it was a 2CEI, but I couldn't recall if they made such a speaker. So, for the sake of avoiding an argument, if the original tweeters honked, then he must have been compensating for a tweeter issue. Either way, the caps were not replaced, they were bypassed so the capacitance was increased by .01uf, that would have made no difference as electrolytic capacitors are usually +/- 10% of rated value. Adding .01uf at 600V would hardly effect that. In series capacitance decreases, in series they increase due to the increased size of the plates that the signal has to deal with. As for his later speakers, I'd have to hear that as it would be an about face for him, unless his boys have taken over. I hope they have shifted gears, they, and Thiel, as far as I know, were the only American manufactures of any size who made phase and time aligned speakers, and I believe that no one bought Thiel and brought them back into production. I was just surprised when that happened, by-passing caps generally clears up the sound because most electrolytic capacitors suck. Black Gates sucked a bit less, but usually by-passing could improve even them. Which reminds me, I haven't visited Audio Note to see if they and Rubycon ever got their version of Black Gates into production since the patent has lapsed on the graphite technology that made the BG caps conduct low level detail so much better than other electrolytic caps.. Anyway, although I am skeptical, I appreciate your input and may try to locate a dealer, though I have gone full range because I have never met a passive crossover that sounds better than no crossover. Frankly I didn't believe the claims until I heard it for myself.

For $800, but not $1k? Okay let’s face it, there’s not a speaker in the world at your price point even near the Magnepan LRS. Those speakers are light years ahead of anything else at that price point. End of story. 

I would have also given a +1 for the Maggie LRS, but it appears size matters.

If I could take the bass from my Wharefdale Diamond 10.1s (currently back-benched) and put it into my ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2 speakers that are in my office, I’d be able to suggest a top-notch, value bookshelf speaker with amazing sound.  Both on their own are outstanding in their own rights, but one has better bass, the other better detail and higher-end extension.  

I haven’t seen anyone recommend the Wharfedale Denton. You might try and find a pair of those on sale.