Warren, No surprise to see you switched after seeing you being a long time supporter for HP Caravelles. Monitor speakers have their limitations. The biggest plus about them is the size. I have 2 totally different setups. One with super low efficiency bookself monitor speakers and the with High efficiency full range coaxial speakers with no crossover. The monitors can fit in most of the small rooms and they give you pin point imaging if you sit in the sweet spot. The electrostatics too give crystal clear imaging with bigger sound with similar limited sweet spot ( not to mention humidity also affect the sound.) These full range speakers just filled the whole room with HUGE sweet spot. Everything seems so "live" as what you described. Not only that, you can sit pretty much anywhere because of the dispersion from the horn. Maybe the audiophiles back in the 50's and 60's knows something we don't know today? Most of the speaker designs in that era are horns with full range speakers. Why some folks would pay broken cones for over $4000 for a pair of Western Electric 728 drivers? or Jensen imperial G610 drivers? beats me. Not to mention it cost few more thousands to have custom made cabinets, these must be something special.
IMHO, For a small room, small monitors might do a better job. For a big room, I would go with full range high efficiency speakers as they sound more natural, transparent and effortless. SET or PP is not as critical as power matching with right amp/speaker combo. A good class A PP can perform just as well as SET ( if not better.)
Depends on music selection, if one like exaggerated bass then one might prefer to go with a sub. I don't use sub because I never like them for the music I listen to except for HT application.
Glad to see you move up to the next level.
