Tannoy and KEF are great speakers, the design is decades old, and has been improved on, they are still being built today. I don't know if you could put Elac in the same category, most all their speakers are considered to be in the budget area, although they came out with a speaker north of $5000, perhaps that one would be able to play in the same arena.
Best current production has be TAD or KEF. Thiel was also excellent. No longer in production but Tom Thiel, brother of Jim, is re-engineering the crossovers and these should be available by the end of the year at Coherent Source Service, the surviving service wing of Thiel Audio.
You know, its been 5 + years since I've seen a pair, but I've modified a couple of different pair of cheap speakers from Best Buy... It was an Insignia NS-B2111. They needed parts improvements, impedance correction and some diffraction control, but man, these things ended up singing quite well. I think I paid about $60 a pair for them. My brother still uses a set with a sub as his main speakers.
Are the drivers in the KEF Moon and Blade that much different from ones used in the Q series, R series and LS50s? They all seem to be made with precision control. Is it just the crossover components and cabinets that are upgraded?
Coherent speakers, out of Canada by Frank Fazzalari, are another coaxial. They have received some great mentions but don't know much else about them. The prices are attractive.
The best I have heard was the Manger driver - mangeraudio.com. Heard them years ago in a custom design. I have heard some others, and, IMHO, these walked all over the KEFs I've heard. I have heard the Piegas, and they are pretty good, too. But who has heard ALL of them?
@timlub - I have a pair of the Insignia coax speakers on a shelf in my dining room. Powered by an old JVC receiver, they sound amazing with music from my server via Plex on my computer, and that is just using the audio out from the sound card. They would never be mistaken for high end, but for the price, they are killer.
@bondmanp I changed the crossover a bit (changed slope, all polyprop caps, better coil), added zcomp, added felt to the tweeter ring and stiffened the cabinet.... You would fall over with the difference!
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.