I am not up on current fashions, but the thing that you need to determine before you buy anything is what exactly do you want? I am sure that we could divide listeners into thousands of groups, SS vs tubes, et. al. I simplify it into two camps. Camp one, I call the Vandersteen camp because Vandersteens are pretty ubiquitous, so most get it. Vandersteens are speakers that have crossovers that mellow out the music. Virtually no matter how poorly a source was recorded or mastered, it will usually sound good through Vandersteens. I had a pair of 2CEs I believe, and when I looked at the tweeter circuit I found 3 electrolytic capacitors in series. Electrolytic capacitors are sound sponges, IME. So, I used a .01mf TFT V-Cap to bypass them. The tweeter sounded awful. Some speakers benefit from crossover modifications, some don’t. If your speakers are not heavily detail oriented, I wouldn’t recommend trying to bypass anything.
Often the detail end of the spectrum may be, depending upon associated gear, ear bleedingly bright. This is my spectrum, I ride the edge between very detailed, and bright, so I have to be sure that anything I buy isn’t bright because my speakers will let you know immediately if something bright has been added to the system.
Once you know where you live between these two worlds, then you can try to sort out what’s what. You really can’t take the advice of others unless you understand their listening predilections or your going to buya lot of things that while great to others, is junk from your perspective. The next part is the hardest, save up and buy your final choice. I bought and sold, and I am no salesman so read that as lost a lot of money, buying unsatisfactory gear for decades. I wasted a ton of money, time, etc. To be fair I didn’t want to go tubes due to their limited life span. Solid state was not very impressive at any price. Reviewers have multiple issues, not the least of which is that if they give your amp a bad review, you feel wronged, and you won’t visit their site nor click on their links. So, even "class A" gear may be junk, and if you like lively, or mellow, and the reviewer’s boat is floated by a different sound, unbeknownst to you his review is worthless to you. If you can’t afford fantastic, consider headphones. Drop will be making another run of Focal Elex headphones in March I believe. You’d have to spend a lot more to actually spank them across the board, but these are going to be detailed, I cannot advise you on good Vandersteen like cans, as headphones are called. The little Schiit Magni Heresy is an awesome little headphone amp, yours may have a headphone out too, I know the name, but not their lines. That might keep you quite content for quite awhile until you can save enough for your dream system. Despite what many here have said, there are many very good older speakers out there. I have Paradigm Studio 100 V3’s, which I believe were the best cabinets they made in the series before cheapening them. I modified the amps in some of their active 40’s. IMO, at least the older Paradigms are good TV speakers, very good, but they don’t hold their own against good stereo speakers. I have B&W 801Ms with quality film and foil caps bypassing all the electrolytic capacitors in the audio path. I almost certainly replaced any resistors in the audio path with mills non-indective wire wound resistors. The 801s have an alluring distinctive house sound, bypassing the electrolytic capacitors cleans that up considerably. It was a little difficult for me to decide whether I preferred the house sound, or the more accurate sound, I guess I had a Vandersteen moment, though even with the electrolytic capacitors Vandersteens sounded like the B&Ws minus the details. Let’s just say that the old 801s are awesome both ways, but I prefer the better components a little more. I could go on, but it would just be redundant. Some old speakers are awesome, more suck than are awesome. I used to think that the newer B&W speakers were bright, but I heard a set driven by Spectral that wasn’t. I can’t say if the others were driven by bright gear or if the Spectral gear was a hair on the darker side, but before I bought either I’d find out because if they are compensating for the other gear, and somehow you lose this or that, your system could go from very good, to very bad quickly. Neutral, and by that I mean YOUR neutral should be the goal for everything you buy. I tried for decades to get Electrostatic Dipole speakers to work for me, I’d buy this or that to compensate, and it was never satisfying, listening fatigue settled in quickly. Go for your neutral, and go big. If not you’ll just burn through piles of cash for unsatisfactory sound.
