Speakers suggestion that can be driven hard

I have decent equipment Audio Research SP8 and Aragon 4004 mkII. I only have blown the tweeter once. It was an accident. i turned on the system and walked away and the volume was just a bit too high and there was a trumpet part that blasted it. I was too late too the volume control to turn it down. It only sounds like there is damage when I play certain passages of certain songs.

As previously stated it was most likely distortion resulting in the blown tweeter rather than too much power into your B&W's... Since you were asking about speaker choice though, Zu Omen's high efficency allow very high sound pressure levels from modest power. If you listen at levels likely to cause the neighbors to complain, consider them or perhaps some of the Klipsch Heritage series speakers if the wide range/no crossover approach is not to you liking. These are well within the budget range you mentioned.

Cheers!

Jimbones,

I'm not sure any speaker will handle what accidentally happened to your B&Ws. Well, at least not any good speaker anyway.

The PSB Stratus Gold can play loudly and take a lot of power, but if you underpower it, like any speaker, you will blow the tweeters due to distortion, not power.

I have been reading some threads and some people that have older speakers with ferrofluid say it dries out. Maybe that is it? Some songs the tweeter is very clear and on others there is a slight static sound.