Speaker recommendation please, please, please

What aspects of sound quality are you looking to improve upon with the upgrade? Until that is known, as Photon said this is just throwing darts at a board blindfolded.

I know you're in a rural area, but if you really want to get this right I'd make the effort to visit at least a few dealers. The perspective and experience you'll gain will be more than worth the effort not only for speakers but with other future upgrades as well. Shows are helpful too, especially to hear a wide range of gear, but they can also be misleading as many rooms do not show what the equipment can really do. They can certainly be helpful in indentifying gear that sounds good to you and may be worth exploring further, but be careful not to dismiss something just because it doesn't sound good at a show. Especially if it's gotten good reviews here and in the press. Best of luck and enjoy the journey.

Hard to go wrong with the Gallo Ref. 3.5s, they do sooooo many things so well. And a gently used pair will run you only about $3,000....

-RW-

There are a pair of the Gaallo 3.5s WITH the sub amp going for $2,999 right now here:

http://app.audiogon.com/listings/full-range-gallo-nucleus-reference-3-5-package-speakers-plus-sa-subwoofer-amp-2012-10-23-speakers-11561-long-beach-ny

I doubt you can do any better than that for the money....

-RW-

You will find many people recommending he speakers that they eventually settled on or that they aspire to own. But make sure you find out what their own listening peers are and what qualities led them to choose those speakers. If you want to listen to Butthole Surfers and an A'goner is recommending a speaker based on its ability to play chamber music then you may not be so happy with it.

To take an example, Mountain High enthusiastically recommends those speakers in a number of threads here. Nothing wrong with that but it would be good to know what music he listens to on them and what he has compared them to.

But ultimately I endorse the advice to listen to as many flavors of speakers as possible on music that you are very familiar with.

There is actually a pair of the dc10 audio's for sale here that I was looking at. They sure look the part anyway. The Gallos sure are well reviewed. I've actually been using their little A'Divas with their smallest sub in a secondary listening room in my house and I think they sound great for that application.

As for what aspects I want to sound better, I frankly don't have the vernacular to answer the question. I hear terms like musicality bandied about and frankly I don't have any idea what the hell that means. Sounds like something from one of my guitar forums - one of those ill defined terms that describes something that we all know it when we hear it but defies explicit definition when pressed to offer one. Like the "chime" of a Vox AC30.

With my new speakers, I mostly want them to sound more realistic relative to the source material than my current ones do. My B&W's sound like I'm listening to a speaker. I want that perception to melt away. I guess transparency is the word. I like a sense of depth or dimension. Like some guitar amps will have a 3-D like quality vs. some are just flat. I also am clearly looking at smaller speakers but I really don't want something that sounds small and certainly not beamy (like I've read the VMPS speakers can).

The Gallo's are probably the only ones on my list I can audition but I'll. The Eficion F300 are bit pricey.

I actually have a lead on the Evolution Acoustics MMMIcroOne's. Seems to be the last pair available at this point and with a significant price hike looming, I might just go for it. The demand is high enough so in the event that I just can't live with them, I should be able to move them along. I'll likely be upgrading the rest of my system in the near future also, so I'm not too bogged down with how the speakers sound with my current gear. The speakers are my jumping off point.

Thanks to all so far for helping me out with this. I know I have a lot to learn. Be patient with me.