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what speakers to buy

so this is my 1st time posting. the question is what speakers. i am going into this blind trying to put together a decent system on a budget. i live in a city where bose is considered the high end of high end and the nearest audiophile shops are hours away.
over the years i have owned a lot of vintage gear and still collect some of it. solid state and tube. some of the tube gear was marantz, macintosh, dynaco, heathkit, radio craftsmen, pilot etc. also the usual solid state marantz, pioneer, kenwood, adcom. speakers jbl, polk, altec (model 19 and vott), paradigm, klipsch, bozak, sansui, AR, advent. all the usual suspects
so far i have purchased a copland tube pre cta-305 and a pair of rogue audio m180 amps. all mint condition all under a year old for under half price of new. i also have a denon DP-60L TT 
(with sumiko pearl cartridge)
speaker budget is around 5000 give or take a 1000. if i'm patient i think i can find something that was originally in the 12-20k price range for what i want to spend.
so far i am leaning towards ew andra ii, dali euphonia 800, canton reference 3.2, revel studio ii. size is also a factor and all of these are within that limit.
i have a fairly large area open concept living /dinning and breakfast nook with high ceilings.
and i know "dont buy without listening" but not an option
so looking for some opinions/options

after speakers i will be getting tuner, cd and music server, current interconnects and speaker wire are all ZU mission


dragonbutx
prof
3,486 posts
 
I've been interested in hearing the Boenicke speakers given their growing rep for great sound in a small form factor.  Unfortunately they have very little North American presence (non in Canada).

Probably the most open and natural sounding speakers you will find at your price point

http://boenicke-audio.ch/

gdhal's avatar
gdhal
1,641 posts
 
Sorry, but I don't think GoldenEar makes anything that comes close to the Focal Utopia line. I don't even think their lineup sounds better than the Focal 900 series, except for maybe their Reference.

Apology accepted. Curious if you've heard the T Ref's. I'd suspect you haven't.





randy-11
1,913 posts
 
if you have WAF issues, you might want to:

1. get Maggies - as they have very high SQ for the price
2. or get something expensive that looks like it cost very little

an example of #2 would be xlnt mini-monitors with some "end tables" (which are really subs)


jazzdc
13 posts
 
KEF LS50 (un powered)

I have two systems that I have spent 20 years painstakingly matching to the rooms in which I listen to music. One large room and one smaller. I do not own these speakers. I own Aerial 5Bs on sound anchor stands and Celius 202s (smaller room). I have demo'd at least 10 other speaker pairs during those years. None of which exceeded my Aerials except....

 the KEFs which I would describe as fully equal to my Aerial 5Bs at 1/2 the price. 

NOTE: I have no connection to any companies or dealers of any kind. That's my input!
whatjd
1,139 posts
 
I have been lucky enough to own many very good ones.  My listening bias is towards acoustic Jazz and female vocals.  I have had the most pleasure from the top Magnepans.  If you are more into rock, esp. at high volumes then the Maggies may not be the best. 
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