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Speaker recommendation £2-10k range

Hi everyone, I’m looking to upgrade the sound quality of my system for listening to music. Music taste - pop, rock, indie, and a bit of rap when I’m feeling frisky.

I currently have a Denon AVR 4311 (that I plan to upgrade to an AVR with Dolby Atmos). I play music at lossless + dolby atmos via Apple TV (but in the future would expect to be able to play high res lossless 24/192) through Apple Music). I have two ceiling mounted Dali Phanthom E60s for surround sound, rear left and rear right. I have an SVS SB-1000 Pro subwoofer, hiding behind my TV. On the photo here you can see my set up - the lounge area is about 3.5m deep by 4.5m wide. The room continues on for another 5m but the main aim is good sound at the sofa.

The weak link is the Libratone Lounge for front. It’s good with vocals, but otherwise can sound quite muddy, dull and not very dynamic, and guitars sound awful. I’d like to replace this with floor standing (or bookshelf on stand) speakers to the left and the right of the tv. They need to be at max 40cm deep at the base, otherwise they’ll stick out too much into the lounge area.

I use Audyssey on the Denon for music - MCH stereo, dsx off, dynamic volume off, multieq to flat, cinema mode, as that’s just what sounds best with my setup for music.

Happy to spend in the £2k - £10k region, prefer used. I don’t mind spending for better sound, but I’m guessing there’s a sensible limit given my space, setup, sub, avr etc that may cap sound quality. AVR pairing for recommended speakers would be helpful too.

Any suggestions or advice would be most welcome! Thank you.

 

 

128x128sach160
gregjacob
114 posts
 

In that budget, I would highly recommend ordering a pair of Daedalus Muse speakers.  I would take them over Harbeth, Spendor, KEF, or any others.  They are custom-made, beautiful, and have a fabulous sound, They may take a bit of time as they are made to order.  Buying off the shelf: Pure Audio Project Duet 15.  

brownred6
19 posts
 

I’ve settled on Harbeths after owning many nice speakers over the years. I ,and many like myself find the overall sound of the BBC class of stand mounted speakers to be our cup of tea. I have two pairs set up for daily listening now. One pair is the 7es-3 for my turntable and the hl5’s for my streaming music. Two separate different tube integrated’s powering each pair. I want for nothing more and have discarded many much more expensive speakers. And the turntable powered smaller one ,less expensive ones sound better than the streamers by a small but discernible difference. I suspect that a better streaming device may help but what I’ve got is very very good. They are well within your price range for new examples and nearer the bottom for used. PS ,I’d never buy new ,only good used ,that’s just me

sach160's avatar
sach160 OP
2 posts
 

Thanks for the tips guys - I'll look at the KEF R, Dali and Monitor Audios. Researching online it seems that Arcam do the best AVRs when it comes to music sound quality, ie the AVR 21 with Dirac Live, so it's about pairing speakers that go well with this unit I think, and also working out whether these higher end speakers will actually sound any better in my setup than lower value models, eg will Kef R11s sound better than the Q550s, given the room, AVR etc?

dayglow
1,889 posts
 

Not sure what sound your after but IMO the Acoustic Energy AE 520 is the most versatile/refined speaker around $5k new I know of. Balance is it’s strong point does not call attention to any frequency point. Could it be boring to you? With any audio component a store demo is a must.

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