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Small room, "budget priced" speaker advice, please

Hi,

I recently sold my dearly beloved, old Vandersteen 2C's here on Audiogon (and I hope SgtPeppers is loving them at this moment!) :-) I did this because in our remodeled house, my new listening room (which will double as a guest room) is just too small for the 2C's. The Spousal Acceptance Factor was just too low. ;-)

I have a PS Audio Elite-Plus integrated amp for power (around 70 W/Ch) and a soon-to-be-shipped-off-for-a-refurb Sota Sapphire for an analog front end (I have "miles" of vinyl)! I will also get a CD player at some point.

For now, I need to find a pair of best-of-breed, truly "budget" speakers. By "budget," I'm talking upper limit of $850/pair. (Gone are my free-spending, single days... I'm a dad now...) :-)

Listening habits: lots of 60's and 70's folk and rock, some jazz, Donald Fagen/Steely Dan, a little classical. Listening volume: not too loud. Sonic preferences: I value transparency and imaging/soundstage. Bass should be accurate above all, as opposed to chest-pounding powerful.

I've looked at Paradigms, which I know are highly regarded at lower price points. Trouble is, our one, local dealer is primarily a TV/home theater outfit, so you're trying to hear them in a showroom crammed with other stuff... you know the drill. I've also hit a high end shop. Listened to a pair of PSB small towers and disliked them; they sounded muddy and veiled to me. Listened to a pair of the smallest Rega's and liked them quite a bit, but would want to go back to listen again. I even wrote to PS Audio for advice; they recommended the "baby" Epos monitors, but they're out of my price range.

Thanks if you've read this far. Knowing how subjective all this is, I'd still welcome any advice you have to offer about what I should try to audition.
rebbi
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mapman's avatar
mapman
22,431 posts
 
I haven't heard Totems for quite a while but recall loving them for much the same reasons you state when I did.

Interesting about the Usher soundstage. I am not familiar enough with them to say why for sure. More "intimate" room acoustics by design maybe to match the tube orientation of the equipment?

Its very hard to precisely compare two different speakers set up in two different rooms with two different rigs. WHat did the dealer say about the SS with the ushers? I need to get to my dealer to give a listen to the UShers some day soon.

Were the setups at the dealer similar at all to the configuration you will have when you place the speakers in your room? Are the UShers and Totems ported? If so, front or back? THis might be worth taking into consideration based on how they will be placed in your room.
rebbi OP
1,326 posts
 
Mapman,

I mentioned to the dealer (very nice guy, by the way) that I was hearing all this depth and imaging between but not beyond the speakers. We tried moving them closer together, toeing them in a tiny bit, and moving the listening position back a foot or two, but it didn't change the soundstage much at all that I could tell. There was definitely magic there, but it was nearly all happening between the speakers, meaning that they never quite did that small monitor vanishing act. I don't know why. I have to say that I agree with what Reina said in Stereophile. There's a real sense of layers of depth there, but I didn't get that "engulfed in sound" experience that the Totems put out.

The Totems are rear ported, the Ushers front ported. He had them way out from the rear wall, mainly because there were a bunch of speakers (not hooked up) behind them. It's a home business and the listening room is not that large.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,431 posts
 
I'm suspecting multiple factors might contribute to what you heard with the Ushers, speaker design, room acoustics maybe combined with tube amplification could result in the sound stage characteristics you describe.

Having small front ported speakers too far out from the rear wall would probably limit the bass response, but not so much the sound stage, I would expect.

OF course, we all know that no two speaker lines sound the same and taste is a major factor. Some will like a deep but more concentrated sound stage better, some will go more for the "disappears into the room act".

So far the totems sound like a better match to you tastes, from what I've heard on this thread. THe Triangles you've never heard are surely more like the Totems than the Ushers from your description.

Maybe someone more knowledgeable about Ushers and tube amplification could offer a more concrete explanation?
rebbi OP
1,326 posts
 
There's another dealer here in Austin who handles British speakers from Kudos, Devore and AVI. Anybody have any experience with or knowledge of those? Thanks!
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