Your taste and preferences are most important. Some prefer a sedate, easy listening sound, and the market caters primarilly to this group. I play 'cello, trumpet, and viola da gamba, in large and small ensambles, and while at university obtaining my music degree, worked for a high end dealer that sold many well known producs. Among them: Avantgarde, Avalon, Wilson, Joseph Audio, Viva, Nagra, Spectral, Theta, Wadia, Levinson, Halcro, SME, VPI, conrad-johnson, Manley Labs. And I spent much time setting up demos of all the above gear, and naturally compared it to what I hear live. From this experience I can say (1) nothing comes closer to live than a good horn system driven by tube gear, everything else sounds thick and compressed by comparison (2) nothing sounds worse than bad horns and tube gear. One must be careful. Many customers are so used to the sound of amps and speakers, even live (most PAs sound really bad,) that a reasonable faximile of real acoustic instruments sounds wrong to them. I worked extensively with the Avantgarde Duos, but was never completely satisfied with the results. I finally found what I sought with the Edgarhorns, the first system I've heard that goes beyond good, and can, at times, sound so much like the real thing it's creepy. I havn't decided yet what amp I'll eventually use. Bruce Edgar said the Lamms are very good, if overpriced, and I think the Vivas are very good. The Nagras sounded good, but were too noisy for 100db+ efficiency speakers. Perhaps I've ranted enough. Good luck with your search, hear the Edgarhorns if you can, let me know if you want to know more, or if you think I'm crazy. I'm always open to new ideas, and welcome any challanges to what I think I know.
