Speakers for a large room for around $1000

05-04-10: Hi_hifi
Now you are headed in the direction of seriously good sound, although maybe not with a high WAF. Martin Logans are poplular electrostatics, but to do their magic they will want to be reasonably far out from the back wall (check the Cardas formula) and they won't resemble much else in the way of typically high WAF furnishings. I'm not sure how much ML speaker you can really get for $1k, but if you can relax the budget and the WAF specs, there is no doubt that in a decent room electrostatics and tubes can reproduce music beautifully.

Not these M-Ls. They aren't electrostats; they aren't dipolar at all. They use a proprietary M-L "ATF" (Advanced Thin Film) forward-firing driver for the treble, augmented by 3 woofers in (I think) a 2-1/2 way configuration. They occupy a fairly modest 9"w x 17"d footprint, are slightly under 40" tall, and don't have to be far out into the room to "breathe." Also available in dark cherry finish. Read about 'em here.

Developing this ATF driver combined with dynamic mid/woofer drivers enables M-L to compete more effectively in the HT and WAF market segments.

Ok Thanks for the clarification
The new ML design would seem to offer some promise
A listening session might be in order

I am also in the market for that price range. How about the following:

a. Vandersteen
b. Paradigm
c. Quad
d. PSB

Any ranking of these please?

05-05-10: Sgtr
I am also in the market for that price range. How about the following:

a. Vandersteen
b. Paradigm
c. Quad
d. PSB

Any ranking of these please?

Depends on room size and shape, listening habits, positioning flexibility, and amp type and power driving the speakers.

Also your musical and tonal preferences. For example, Paradigm and PSB are both Canadian companies that do a lot of research as Canada's National Research Foundation. Yet Paradigm tends to have more boom 'n' sizzle while PSB is known for a transparent, honest midrange and incredible frequency linearity. They're both similar in sensitivity, impedance load, and dispersion pattern. Personally my taste strongly prefers PSB, but YMMV depending on taste and music selection.

TAS has chosen SIX different PSB speakers at different price categories for at least the last two years running.

Still, each of the speakers you listed has special "gifts." Vandersteens have a realistic tonal balance, focused midrange, low cabinet resonances and diffraction distortion. They're phase coherent which makes for the most scintillating imaging and facilitate hearing deep into the music and the soundstage. Quads are famous for sounding lifelike at low to medium volumes. Paradigm probably leads the four for bass slam and overall speed. I consider the PSB to be a well balanced all-rounder with a better-than-expected midrange, both timbrally accurate and transparent.

Which way are you leaning now?