How do you get the "real" feel of music?

I agree with Indiana, although having enough clean power to drive the speakers is important too. However, and this is my opinion, I have never heard a natural sounding horn speaker in my life. I know of no good studio that uses horn monitors, and in fact the speakers I use go the the extreme oposite in design to get as far away from the horn or even box effect by putting the mids and tweeters in seperate smaller enclosures so the enclosure is not a factor at all. I am speaking about B&W 801's and 802's, which I would highly advise you listen to. The list of top rated studios that use these is almost endless. Tom

Sorry to condradict you Pe3046, but long ago, in a stereo system far, far away, I used to own a pair of KG4's. They were the most hopelessly colored speakers I have ever had to depend upon for my daily listening. Just all kinds of spurious artifacts, response anomolies, and general masking of musical information. Did it matter that they were fairly efficient? Sure, they rocked out more than the pair of little EPIs I left home with, but who would want to listen to this degree of error at a high volume anyway? About the only good thing I can say for them is that they looked pretty cool for the cheap price. I replaced them as soon as I could with pair Allison CD-8s, which sounded virtually like 801s after the KG-4s, which I'm sure are somewhere, still ringing from an impulse they received in about 1988! (Please don't extrapolate this criticism to the K-Horns, or other classic full-size Klipsch models.) In fairness to you, though, my current speakers are Thiel CS 2.2s - not the most dynamic in the world - so have at 'em!

Indiana Jones and Pbb have given good advice. Because I think (or imagine) that I know exactly what you mean, I would be more specific:

You are above all looking for sensitive (efficient) speakers with excellent dynamics and transient response. I'd recommend professional studio monitors, whether vintage or new: Altec 604s; a range of configurations from the JBL Professional line; Tannoy DMT 12 or 15s; certain Klipsch. My personal opinion is that dollar for dollar, Tannoy DMT would be your best bet. A clean, high-current amp will get the most out of the speakers. Overall, for what I'm guessing you spent on your current set-up, you could put together a quite satisfying system. Regards, Dr_joe.

Fully horn loaded is definitely the way to go. If you can spend several thousand on the speakers, it's probably the way: K-horns, Altec VOTT, Tannoy Westminster and Autograph, Avant Garde, not to mention many extraordinary DIY horn speakers.

But I think if you're limited to paying, say, US$650-2000 for a pair of speakers (used naturally), the ones I mentioned--which generally have horn loaded HF and basss reflex loaded LF--require of the listener fewer compromises.

Happy listening all!

Great suggestions Joe: I forgot about the Tannoys especially & I do like them! But B&W's no way - extremely inefficient. Flat response yes, nonresonant yes, accurate yes, but slam & dynamics - no.