System that sounds so real it is easy to mistaken it is not live

jayctoy, No one would argue with the positive experience you had listening to your friend's system, but in my opinion the system as described is very pedestrian for its day (late 90s to early 2000s) or any day, actually.  For one thing, my buddy owned an LS2B.  We both thought it was one of the least good sounding preamplifiers ever made by ARC. That's the nicest way I can put it.   I can say this to you I hope without personal insult, because it was not your system.  But this just goes to show us that there is pleasure to be had from even a set-up that would be considered mediocre at best by most.

Wow! Raul's speakers sound wonderful in those Youtube videos.  I'd love to hear a pair in person.

@rauliruegas , I down loaded the article and will get back to you on it. Cool Loudspeakers for sure. 

Tough call. Lots of folks say no way.  I am sure plenty arent fans of Klipsch speakers on here.  I would say the new Jubilees, which are huge by the way, can get you very close and I 100% refute the fact you need a lot of power.  Efficient speakers will bring you the detail you need at low volumes or high volumes.    Klipsch heritage line will give you a very realistic live soundstage and they love tube amps.    

K Horns , Cornwalls with a great matched amp set up I think many would be surprised how lifelike they are.

@rauliruegas , Back in the 80 ADS made what were arguably the best dynamic speakers on the market. The L2030s were landmark speakers in several respects. They used and active crossover and required bi amplification.  They used a line source midrange array. Cross over points are at 450 Hz and 4000 Hz. To orient people the wavelength of 450 Hz about 2.4 feet depending on altitude and barometric pressure. 4000 Hz about 3 inches. In order to radiate as a line source an array has to be as tall as the longest wavelength it is to reproduce. In this case  the mid range array is 30 inches tall so it does act as a line source over its entire range. The woofers and tweeter however are point source as the tweeter is 1" and the woofers are 30 inches total. This is unfortunately a distinct problem for amplitude response except at one distance from the loudspeaker. Point source acoustic power drops off at the cube of the distance while line source drops off at the square of the distance. This is why you always see line source arrays at big concerts. They radiate acoustic energy more effectively. In this case the midrange drivers are going to get relatively louder as distance increases creating a hump in the amplitude curve. They will sound "right" only at one distance. This can be adjusted to some degree by the crossover so you can probably tune them to a specific distance. The other problem is that point sources radiate differently than line sources. Point sources are more or less omnidirectional whereas Line sources do not radiate above or below the array. This is why the line sources you see at big concert are always curved. In this case if your head is either above or below the midrange array the midrange will virtually disappear.  The speaker as a whole should be treated acoustically like a point source system from a room treatment perspective. It is not highly directional as is a line source dipole.  

As a whole I think this speaker system should sound wonderful at a specific distance while in your chair. I am sure they are capable of wonderful bass however, since the woofers run up to 450 Hz which is a big chunk of the mid range (middle C is 256 Hz) these speakers will still benefit greatly from the addition of two subwoofers, two very big subwoofers. I would also exchange the cross over for s digital system. Check out the DEQX Pre 8 which will be released shortly. It has all the power you need and 4 crossovers! I plan on getting one to run a ribbon super tweeter from 12 kHz up and the subwoofer system. It will take the stress off the MA 2s from running the treble of ESLs.