Sound Stage and Imaging

re "what about"

they are all good value, safe choices. I have never heard Dali but the others (some models of KEF, B&W and SF) - however, none of them get me excited. From your budget you could get a used Dynaudio Contour 20s or Harbeths or MoFi speakers. What is your approach to narrow down your search?

@mahgister "...imaging is NEVER achieved by luck or haphazard owners actions , but by acoustic good conditions and gear synergy for sure ..."

Are you speaking about image as a holographic or two dimensional ?

IF you have an amp with some grunt the big brother of the model 1’s and 2’s you admire is the Vandersteen 3A - signature. Time and phase correct in the analog domain  and drivers and crossovers seemless matched by hand in the anechoic chamber in California since 1977. 

@mijostyn only got part of it right, he isn’t a simpleton.. BTW, you really should build your own electrostatic…1982 project for me…. hand rubbing graphite on to mylar and then taking the Beveridge path…. Harold was a gem….we sold his gear

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@tomic601 

I have been down that route. I now only build stuff I know I can do better than anything commercially available and I can not do better than Sound Labs although I have made some modifications. Nothing spectacular. I added a second set of inputs so I can drive the high frequency transformer separately and bypassed all of the controls. 

I installed Beverages in two systems back in 1980 or so, the tall Round Towers with Mark Levinson equipment, Tandberg tape decks and LP12s. Fine systems for the day. I never met Harold but I knew Jim Strickland of Acoustat well. I ran 2+2s for decades. 

@kraftwerkturbo 

The Sonus Fabers are the best of that group. I compared the LS50 Meta directly with the Harbeth P3 and there was no comparison. The Harbeth was significantly better. My son in law bought the Harbeths and built two 12" subs from Dayton kits.