Given my values of musical and natural sounding music Sonus Faber and tube equipment like Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, and VAC is perfect. The combination captures the warmth and depth from a sax or female vocals, but rises to high impact electronic music not sounding sluggish or muted in any way.
Your thoughts on best audiophile speakers in $10,000 neighborhood?
I know the best way to select a speaker is to auditioon them at a dealer or in my own home. However, living in a rather rural area in northern Michigan, there's only one reputable dealer (Sonus Faber) in town so I may end up relying on reviews and your feedback.
I used to own Vandersteen Model 2Cs in the late 1980s, but finally want to step up my game. I currently have a legacy Nakamichi receiver / amp with 1000wpc, but will probably upgrade that once I select a new pair of speakers. Currently I'm playing mostly LPs on a Technics SL1210G. I now listen mostly with a Mark Levinson 5909 headphone connected to a small Class A pre-amp, so I treasure detail and transparency and don't lean toward "warm" speakers.
Room is good size since it encompasses living room and opens to dining room and kitchen behind it. Cathedral ceiling is about 12 feet high.
I'm considering the following speakers: Vandersteen Treo CT, Wharfedale Elysian 4 (perhaps too big for my room), Monitor Audio Gold 300 and the Sonus Faber Sonetto VIII. These all fit within my budget. What are your thought about any of these...or do you have others to recommend?
Thanks for whatever guidance you can give me.
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@mglik I know this is an older thread but you claimed to have already purchased the Quad ESL-2812X in April yet even today the X version of this speaker is not available and has not even been announced by Quad yet. I have spoken to the distributer and a popular Quad dealer, and they confirmed this. They have announced its bigger brother the ESL-2912X but even that is not yet available. Did you make a mistake and just get the ESL-2812, or did you have some special connection within Quad to get the X version before they announced them or even acknowledged them? Just interested because I'm considering this speaker if it is ever announced and released. Also, I'm being told the X version of the 2812 won't be sold at $10K but at a higher price, possibly $2-3K higher. |
For new speakers I have to agree. Haven’t encountered anything close to as good for around $10K. The closest performing B&W, Perlisten, Sonus Faber and Revel all retail for at least twice as much. Some of those reach deeper in the lowest octave but the X3s match or outperform them on every other level to my ears. They X3s are the only remotely affordable speaker I know of that can match the speed and transparency of panels/planars, but without the typical drawbacks of panels. Some other dynamic-driver speakers can do this but none I’ve heard under $20K, especially among speakers that can be bought new. It’s my understanding that Borresen set out to create a new benchmark for performance in this price class. IMO they more than succeeded.
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