speaker advice' help needed

I have an Underwood modded 502B driving a pair of Totem Sttafs and this is a lovely combination. Totems are not the most efficient but not a problem at all with 502, i think people tend to exaggerate about how much power some less efficient speakers need to be happy. Any Totems will match well with the larger Jolida tube amps. I upgraded from an Arcam A75 which was terrible with the Totems which revealed all kinds of grain and high frequency garbage, very revealing speakers. My Arcam CD72 is next on the chopping block to be repleced by an Eastsound CD-5.

From a fellow lover of mostly classical orchestral (along with rock, jazz, R&B and acoustic) I highly recommend the Nola Minis. (They aren't really as small as the name suggests - more like medium size monitors.)

Frankly, IMO many speakers (especially monitors) in this price range fall down on large scale orchestral music. Very few do justice to big complex music at reasonable sound levels without becoming congested. Floorstanders tend to do better than monitors for presentation of symphonic music but that probably means buying used to meet your budget.

Except for the Minis (fomerly Alon Lil Rascals II).

The Minis are coherent, very open, very spacious and *very* dynamic. They are resolving without sacrificing upper end sweetness plus they have an excellent midrange along with surprising bass heft. (They sound like much larger speakers.) The Minis are also affordable at $695 list ($595 street). These are my go-to speakers for new at under 1K - you'll have to spend much more on new speakers to better them for large scale music. Alas, "scale" is just what you don't get with many affordable monitors on classical music.

I'd also second the suggestion of used Vandersteen 2ce/or Signatures. These are floorstanders that do well on classical and all types of music.

It's a personal thing, but I don't find single driver speakers very satisfying for symphonic music.

Thanks everyone for your help and advice. I decided to go with a pair of used Vandersteen 2Ce's. We'll see how it goes.

Tony

Best speakers I have ever heard for the money is a pair of EFE T-22cf's They run 1190 and just KILL anything $4000 or under. Do a search on www.audioreview.com He is one of the few speaker builders that get's all 5s!