Looking for speaker recommendations that I can purchase on Amazon.com


Budget: under US$5000 and would prefer a price point of less than $3000/pair. The most expensive speakers I have owned so far are Polk RTi A7's, so this will be a big jump for me.

Purpose: music

Room: I tend to move every few years, so I don't want speakers that will work best only with very specific room conditions. Currently, I will be using these in a medium size room of about 22 feet x 18 feet. The room has carpet and window treatments.

Music sources: CD's, lossless music files stored on computer and MP3's when that's all I have available. I don't ahve any SACD's yet, but I plan on purchasing more high quality music once I have this system set up.

Music styles: acoustic, Indian classical (sitar, srangi, flute), alternative rock (Portugal. The Man, Sleeping with Sirens, etc.), older rock (e.g., Rush).

The speakers should sound good playing the Tanpura (aka Tambura). It is a classical Indian accompaniment instrument in the "drone" category. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanpura) Example of sound here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7tlqXix_eo
With bad equipment that sound is fatiguing to me. Live it is beautiful and relaxing. Hopefully I can find speakers that will do it justice.

Personal Preferences: I am looking for non-fatiguing, warm, musical qualities. In another discussion topic here on this forum, @mtrot and I agreed about "smooth, sweet, soft, silky treble" and "shimmery, airy cymbals" as goals.

Amplifier: Yamaha P5000S

DAC: to be determined, but probably something like the Teac NT-503

Finally, the speakers of choice must be sold on Amazon.com, Bestbuy.com (or possibly some other similar retail website). I have personal reasons for this limitation. It isn't always true that I will need to buy all my speakers or audio gear from one of these sites, but for the moment, it is a requirement. Please don't recommend anything that isn't available on one of these sites. Thanks.

lowoverdrive
This was the conclusion of the test (if you don’t know French, the Audio Precision graphs should speak for themselves, link at the bottom):

CONCLUSIONS
. La puissance annoncée est largement obtenue (370W Rms sans remontée de distorsion, pour 350W Rms annoncé)
. Bande passante extra-large (ceux qui lui reprochent de manquer d’aigu, faudra m’expliquer...)
. Distorsion infime à bas niveau, très faible jusque la limite de l’écrêtage
. Pas de distorsion de croisement, toute petite remontée de distorsion dans la zone 0.5W - 8W Rms; pas mal vu le faible courant de repos de l’étage de sortie!
. Un ampli que l’on peut utiliser en utilisation domestique comme en sono de qualité
. Quant au prix... "honteusement bas" pour un appareil de ce niveau de perfs (400 euros chez Thomann...), de puissance et de protections.

Je suis content d’avoir acheté cet ampli et son grand frère P5000S pour mon système tri-amplifié, ce P3500S va donc rejoindre mon rack pour driver les médiums CMCD-JBL. Je suis convaincu, attachant une grande importance aux résultats de mesure.
(Je suis électronicien de passion et de métier)

Petite anecdote je n’ai pas entendu le ventilo se déclencher pendant les phases ou je le faisais travailler à puissance max le temps de la FFT..
La résistance de puissance, elle commençait à sentir le chaud!

Que reste-t-il aux "classe A" ésotériques et infiniment plus chers? je ne rentrerai pas dans ce débat...

Read more at http://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum/amplificateurs-de-puissance-haute-fidelite/mesures-ampli-yamaha-p...
I participated  early in this thread but I see it is now just a big waste of time.
@stereo5 The thread started off great and I received a lot of sincere and informative replies, all of which I appreciate.

Lately, there were some attempts to hijack the discussion, but that's just a fact of life of online discussions. Those things can be ignored.

What follows is a general reply to several questions I saw.

I feel like I have received sufficient information now. I have a nice list of candidate floorstanding speakers. I just need to process all the info for a week or two and have some email or phone discussions with the sellers I want to do business with, then I will make a decision and place my order.

I met (via email) a fantastic seller on Amazon today who runs a brick and mortar home electronics store on the West coast (USA) and has been in business for more than 100 years!

They have a 100% positive feedback rating on Amazon, are a  Trusted Store at Shopping.com, a CNET certified reseller, etc. The staff is knowledgeable and helpful. I can reach them by phone or email. And I can order through Amazon.

This is just one example of several sellers I like on Amazon's marketplace.

My final decision will be a confluence of the suggestions here, my reading of reviews of those products, and my discussions with the sellers I like on the Amazon marketplace. (I may also try to visit a Best Buy before making my final decisions, but so far these independent sellers on the Amazon marketplace are doing a great job of earning my business.)

I'm sure I will get criticized for not making my purchase decision based on listening to the speakers in a dealer's showroom, but that is probably not a practical / convenient option for me. (My closest Best Buy does not have a Magnolia showroom, for example.)

Furthermore, from what I have read, the room itself makes a lot of difference. It is possible that the speakers will not sound the same in the dealer showroom as in my listening room. Therefore, it is possible that I would want to return the speakers whether I listen first or not.

BTW, I am explicitly communicating with the online sellers and selecting only those who are OK with the small probability that I will want to return the speakers.
Listen, you're clearly an Amazon consumer so you know how it works.  Buy yourself the Yamaha AS2000 I listed earlier.  If it doesn't smoke the 5000 you have, just return it.  But, give both at least 100 hours of burn-in time or you'll not hear the best of what they can produce.  No less than Peter from PBN Audio has endorsed the AS2000, so buy with confidence if you also hear the difference.  Or just go with Willemj, who is clearly a measurement expert.  

the Yamaha website lists the p5000s as discontinued, replaced by the xp5000...