Where would you go after Wilson WP7?

"Can another speaker sound better given the smallish room?"

Maybe Magnepan (yes, even in your small room).

Being a planar, much less floor and ceiling bounce than your point source. What you might lose in bass impact could be made up for and maybe bettered with a powered sub.

You should have room behing the speaker but if you can't get 3 or 4 feet, you can put a diffuser behing them.

You certainly have the amp for them.

Dear Audiogoners,

Your lack of experience is remarkable! No one has asked about cabling, power conditioning, or how much music vs home theater is happening. As usual with most audiogoners vs professionals you guys are not looking at the entire picture and asking all the right questions.

It is totally possible that a simple change of cables or adding power conditioning, may make a huge difference.

Also the Krell processor although good is not going to create the sound stage that this listener is trying to get.

If someone wants to listen to a combined home theater and music system the best thing is to use a real preamplifier with a home theater bypass function, I have never found a pre/pro that can beat a good tube preamplifier and usually the dac's in the pre/pros are good but seldom that remarkable compared to EMM Labs, DCS, Wadia etc.

I have sold numerous Krell systems fronted by tube preamps and yes you can use a Krell amp with a tube preamp, no problem what so ever.

The addition of a good tube preamplifier will make the highs much smoother and create a much wider sound stage.

Also there has been no discussion of what source is being used in the system.

An older digital source can have glare.

Hey guys what do I know, 25 years professional experience, gained at two of NYC biggest dealers.

If you like wilson, then obvious choice is sasha, it is a great improvement from w/p series, maxx would be to big...

@ Lloydelee21: where did you find maxx 3 or alexandria 2 with 1/3 retail price ?

Not sure what your budget is, but here are 2 speakers in the same approximate price range that I think would be an upgrade over what you currently have. The new Magico S5 speakers and the new Rockport Avior speakers. Both of these have the same approximate foot print as your Watt Puppy 7 speakers. These 2 speakers will sound different in comparison to each other so it will be a matter of personal preference.

Thanks very much guys for the thoughtful responses!!

Lol yes I have had a hearing test recently. I have lost some high freq. I can hear up to about 14.5kh. Too many years shooting skeet. M sbl meter reads at times 103 peaks but the norm is around 100db. However that's only for rock, volume is much less for Aron Copland :)

The HTS 7.1 does allow pure per-amp mode. I do not know how good it is though. The source is a pc running Sonos playing apple lossless though a Cullen modified zp90 feeding a PS Audio DAC. Maybe I can get a shop to allow me to audition per-amps. Issue is I have a PS3, CD player, and satellite all hooked up .

I did see Wilson Maxx2 listed for less than 19k. Tempting but i bet too much for the room.