Poor man's Rockport Atrias?

If you want "poor man's Rockport Atrias," you have to seek other speakers with characteristics similar to what makes the Rockports so compelling. I figure it's a combination of very heavy and inert cabinetry combined with well-matched drivers plus a beryllium tweeter on top. You won't get that airy high end without something that has the resolution and rise time of a beryllium tweeter. It doesn't have to be beryllium; it could also be a diamond tweeter, a true ribbon (e.g., a Raal), possibly a quasi-ribbon (Magnepan), or a folded ribbon (Aurum Cantus or Heil-type air motion transformer as used in Martin Logan Motion and GoldenEar speakers.

Unfortunately, beryllium and diamond tweeters are pretty expensive as are many ribbons of various designs.

Perhaps you should audition some speakers from the Focal Electra Be (beryllium) line and see if they get you into the same sonic ballpark. Currently there is a pair of Focal Electra 1038Be's in the classifieds without so much sticker shock. Focal also has great drivers and goes to great lengths to keep cabinet resonances at a minimum. The ones I've heard have great room-filling dispersion.

Personally I'm partial to the Magnepan/premium subwoofer approach. Some people would find a pair of Magneplanar 3.7s plus a pair of JL subs equally satisfying.

Soix seems to have the best advice here ;-)

IMO, Soix has given not so terrific advice. For every miracle speaker there is another which is as good, or perhaps even better at a much lower price.

Feel free, go ahead and spend the $20K if you wish. But in no way does it assure you have done the best you could do either value-wise or in terms of performance. :(

Spend the money, go to a show, as it will be SO worth it to hear the other offerings and help you to find your dream speaker within your parameters of system building.

Further, it is the system which makes the sound, not just the speakers. It is possible to get a speaker which is slightly lesser in absolute terms (subjective evaluation, of course) and yet outperform a much more costly/better speaker IF the correct components are chosen. I am not interested in arguing this point. If you disagree, so be it.

Best to keep talking, listening, attend a show, etc. I have absolutely nothing against the Rockport speakers; I think they are terrific sounding. However, if the goal is to save $5-$10K the solution is not to simply blow it.

Finally, if you have the space you may find that an approach like mine, holding more than one pair of speakers, can have incredible appeal and satisfy more than chasing "the One," the supposed be all speaker! So, yeah, a panel to add could be a great solution. :)

Possibly the Salk SoundScape at 8k is the cheapest full range speaker that will play with the big boys. It has a very thick cabinet, transparent Accuton midrange and top quality design. The Accutons are near the top for transparency for simple coned speakers, but generally don’t sound quite as full as some high quality sandwich cone midranges. The Salks make up for this and a bit more, by using a hybrid open baffle to add fullness, excitement and transparency.

Bob

I agree with soix, Taboooe, we have spoke before, I would get the rockport speakers, who cares what comes out better!, the question is, how much better can it get!, at this point of performance and what you can afford, ride off into the sunset with them!