what speaker new or used for 5k?

Soix hit the nail on the head, I'm looking for improvements in resolution, image and soundstage. something that's not too bright or laid back. its like the speakers I have are missing something not sure if its in the components or cabling?

You might consider making a change in amplification before changing speakers. There are higher resolution amps than what the A 21 gives you.

My suggestion is to try to get a few contenders at home for a trial, and see if there are improvements that do it for you.

Regards,

dan

I know a different amp and pre amp can breath life into those speakers. I would say the amp and pre are more laid back/dead sounding than the speaker on that speaker. I use a Belles Ref 150a V2 with a passive pre with excellent results. Something that might get you good results that I have not tried are a class 'd' amps. The mozarts need controlled to sound articulate and I think a class 'd' could provide that. Also I think they sound pretty clean without being bright. However I have not tried them. In my listening to your amp it seemed to me it was a slight bit dry and dull. However it was not bright, edgy, forward, or sloppy.
I think what the mozarts need are an amp to control them well so to be articulate and not lazy sounding and also not be bright but have a good leading edge to the sound. That is what I get with the Belles. Most of the mozarts I have heard sound edgy and/or bloated. Not pleasant to me. However when you get them tuned in they are quite impressive. The kind of impressive you say to yourself 'man that was an amazing performance' almost every time you listen to something.
What I like about the mozarts in my set up is they provide and abundance of detail to mimic a realistic impression of the real thing in a good way- they portray the whole body of a person, the whole instrument of many instruments and so on, makes for an engaging experience, they have a natural life like sound.
I think something that it seems is overlooked is the timing of music being naturally preserved. When it is skewed it robs the sound of its musicality. I think that is one if not the biggest draw back of reproduced sound in our fancy systems. You can listen to a small radio or in your cars simple system or somebody else's simple system and really connect to it, not the sound but the music. I think it is because among other obvious things it also preserves the timing well. We hear of fast amps and slow amps. And it seems to me they preserve some aspect of the music fast or slow or the harmonic structure but not all of it. To me it is kind of like the music was dissected a put back together and it just doesn't fit very well. I am talking in the analog domain. Something can individually have a natural like sound but the whole tapestry looses musicality. It seems The mozarts along with my other equip preserve that timing is an excellent way. You might think of some music you like. A primary component of that music is the timing, that's why that music is what it is, and likely why you connect to it to a larger or lesser degree. To me the mozarts preserve timing of the harmonic structure along with a realistic natural image to a very high degree. That being said everybody seems to like a variety of things. You have some nice speakers jughead.

I'm not sure if it would be wiser to replace my amp and pre to match the Mozarts? or replace the Mozarts to a speaker that matches my amp and pre amp better? I don't think id have any problem selling any of the equipment. I do think the a21 is a warmer sounding amp and that may be the reason the Mozarts don't sound right. not sure if id go with a class d amp, I do have a friend who has a pure class a amp I could borrow and see what that does for the Mozarts.

Jughead, Marqmike,

Out of curiosity, and a need to save a bit of cash, I sold a nice First Watt M2 amp, and ordered a Class D Audio CDA 254 amp, in a kit. You can have them build it, or they have complete amps ready to sell.

Anyway, I built the first one, and I was shocked at the quality of sound coming out of my custom-built Tannoy HPD 315 loudspeakers.

I was getting the best bass response I'd heard from my 12" Dual Concentric speakers, with beautiful mids and highs as well. It compared very favorably with my SET 300B amp, but with more power.

I built another one, and ran two amps bridged into mono, making 500 Watts into 8 Ohms. It sounded superb, but an old multi channel amp I was using for center and surrounds went bad, so I converted one of the amps to three channel, just had to add another amp module and input and speaker terminals, with the one unit, there's 125 Wpc for the surrounds, and 500 Watts to the center channel.

Multi-channel music, and tv watching has never sounded this good before.

Along with Marqmike, I recommend you give them a try. I am living very happily with Class D, and the complete kit is only $430, very high quality parts, and made in the USA. It costs an additional $100, I believe, to have them build it for you.

It's something to think about. I think you'd be surprised, I know I sure was.

Best of luck,
Dan