Need help picking speakers for small room
First, the room: 13'x10 with low ceilings. Dry wall and carpet. Main use is home office. Placement options are limited. Speakers will have to be close to the wall and near the corners. I plan to install some acoustic panels to tame early reflections.
All my speakers are Boston VR-M series. I like the sound, but naturally want something different for this modest 2-channel set up.
I listened yesterday to Focal Element B bookshelves and Totem Forest towers connected to $10K-$20K worth of electronics. Far and beyond what I intend to spend. I wasn't blown away by what I heard. Don't get me wrong -- they sounded great, but not night-and-day better than my Bostons.
This audition reinforced my intent to spend about $1000 or less on my speakers. Most of the speakers on my list to consider (Energy, NHT, Ascend, Klipsch, Canton, B&W) are in the $700 range, and most have a frequency response of 50Hz or below.
The speakers I'm looking for should be more fun than analytic. They need to be not very fussy about placement. The should work well with a wide variety of music choices, much of it ripped lossless to my computer.
Given the dearth of dealers around here anymore (biggest family-owned chain just went belly up after 50 years) I'll probably buy over the Internet (ID, Audiogon, etc.).
As for electronics, I'm going to start by using a surplus 5-channel Denon receiver rated 75WPC. I bought it 10 years or so ago and it still works great. will replace it with a 2-channel amp when it fails or the upgrade bug bites.
What would you do in my position?
