I agree with bcgator and also with what auxinput said. If you plan on spending upwards of 8k on a pair of speakers and do not have the means to go out and listen then you should at the very least spend some time researching speakers. Also what are your goals? How big is your room? How far from the walls will they placed? Where is your listening position? Do you plan on using tubes or solid state? What is your source? And on and on.....
If you do a search just on this site alone for standmount recs under 10k there are many threads that cover this topic. You will also see many of the same brands recommended over and over. I would venture to guess that is due to the fact that either they were favorably reviewed in the audio press and so many went out and bought them and then reported their experiences in the forums or word of mouth spread about them through the various forums by members who's opinions are deemed trustworthy.
Also keep in mind brand regocnition comes in to play quite often and many will make recommendations based on the general consensus that brand x is known for having certain characteristics.
For example I could probably tell you about the attributes and shortcomings of many speaker brands just through the amount of research and discussions I have had with fellow audio nuts through the years. However, that doesn't mean I could make a solid recomendation just based on that in information alone.
One last thing I would tell you is that beyond the usual suspects that are commonly recommended on here keep in mind that there are many small owner operator speaker designers that sell internet direct or have a very small dealer network and these guys can more than compete with designs costing thousands more. Selah, Fritz, Salk, Sonist, Ryan Speaker Art and Spatial Audio are just a few that come to mind of the many that are out there.
Maybe take your budget, spread it out and buy a few pairs to audition instead of spending it all on one pair. If you do some homework and buy and sell properly you could do this with several pairs and learn quite a bit, That's what I did and you never know, you might find that you don't actually need to spend 8k to get good speakers.
Best of luck with your search.
If you do a search just on this site alone for standmount recs under 10k there are many threads that cover this topic. You will also see many of the same brands recommended over and over. I would venture to guess that is due to the fact that either they were favorably reviewed in the audio press and so many went out and bought them and then reported their experiences in the forums or word of mouth spread about them through the various forums by members who's opinions are deemed trustworthy.
Also keep in mind brand regocnition comes in to play quite often and many will make recommendations based on the general consensus that brand x is known for having certain characteristics.
For example I could probably tell you about the attributes and shortcomings of many speaker brands just through the amount of research and discussions I have had with fellow audio nuts through the years. However, that doesn't mean I could make a solid recomendation just based on that in information alone.
One last thing I would tell you is that beyond the usual suspects that are commonly recommended on here keep in mind that there are many small owner operator speaker designers that sell internet direct or have a very small dealer network and these guys can more than compete with designs costing thousands more. Selah, Fritz, Salk, Sonist, Ryan Speaker Art and Spatial Audio are just a few that come to mind of the many that are out there.
Maybe take your budget, spread it out and buy a few pairs to audition instead of spending it all on one pair. If you do some homework and buy and sell properly you could do this with several pairs and learn quite a bit, That's what I did and you never know, you might find that you don't actually need to spend 8k to get good speakers.
Best of luck with your search.