Near Field listening

You would be MUCH better off buying Professional studio monitors for true nearfield listening. They are made for this type of listening, and you can NOT ask a home speaker to be as good as a speaker made specifically for nearfield listening.

Sorry Timtim, I HAVE to disagree.

While in Nashville, a block from Music Row managing a store frequented by Nashville types, stars and engineers and producers...I had occassion to listen to studio monitors, and more important have many of those folks do the same.

Invariably, they'd remark that the home versions of speakers 'sounded better', and 'more lifelike', 'more realistic'.

Studio monitors I've known are not good at reproducing the input signal. I've had more than one engineer tell me...."I know they're not good, but I know what THEY sound like and I can engineer around them."
My question was always, 'Why start off with that kind of handicap.'

Good listening.

Larry

Lrsky, are you a dealer of consumer audio products?

Regards,

Hi and thanks for all the responses. My budget is 1000 max and really I would prefer to not spend that much although I might have to. I am using vandersteen 2ce's and they are available for less than a 1000 so it would be hard for me to justify spending more.
Thanks

Concerning studio monitors - I got a laugh out of Lrsky's comments about studio monitors not being that good. I recall many engineers telling me that they liked the JBL 4311s because they sounded so bad that once you got the music sounding good on them, it would sound great anywhere else.

To the OP - Harbeth speakers work very well for nearfield sane-volume listening.