Help with speaker selection, please

As others have pointed out, each of those speakers may have different drive requirements. Besides that, your "short list" is so diverse that i see NO continuity to the choices. In my opinion, NO electrostat or "monitor" type speaker can do justice to "rap" or anything with a LOT of high level low frequency output. While i hate to sound like "Mr Negative", you really do need to sit down and figure out what your main priorities and goals for this system are and then make your selections based on that info. There are TONS of good speakers out there, but some may be MUCH better suited to your tastes and goals than others. Sean
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I have owned the ProAc 308's and enjoyed them in my system. At that time I ran them with a Bryston 4B ST and a Bryston BP 25. They were not at all difficult to run. I know of people who use relatively low powered tube amps to run their ProAc speakers. It is a speaker that sounds very good with many different types of music.
Many of the speakers that you have listed sound exceptional with certain music in certain setups and sound poor with other types of music and different setups. I believe that the ProAcs will sound very good with many different setups, in many different locations, with many different sources. A safe bet. Good Luck!!!!!
Drew

If you've got $8k to burn, you might be best off to get 2 pair of speakers on the used market. Allocate, say, $1000 for a pair of thrashers to listen to rap, country, and your playstation on. Then funnel the remaining $7000 into a worthy pair of exotics to listen to MUSIC on. Let your ears be the judge. And as many have pointed out, different speakers will behave differently with associated equipment. What is the output voltage and impedance of a playstation anyways? Yikes! The very thought makes me cringe. And just out of curiosity, what type of performance/ characteristics does one look for in a pair of $8000 video game speakers??

Interesting... all of the speakers have excellent qualities, but are soooo different. If you like the glorious but limited sound of the Quads, but want the transparency of the Merlin's, with the speed of the Talon's, the beauty of the ProAcs, and some of the dynamics of the Avantgarde's, I might suggest a speaker that has a combination of all of the above... the Piegas.

I was quite impressed with them. They do everything so well and are very easy to drive. They like solid state amplification as well as tubes. They give you the best of the ribbon speakers along with the dynamics and bass of the box speakers.

I would highly suggest you add them to your short list. There are not a lot of people who have heard them, but I could put you in touch with a few other people that have replaced much more expensive speakers with them. You may look at the "Golden Ear" issue of T.A.S. where Jonathan Valin touted them so highly.

I have the most eclectic taste in music of anyone I know (everything from folk to electronic) and I've found speaker happiness with proac AND a rel stadium sub. Unless you spend kilobucks on a full-range, you'll never get those 20-30 hz 'notes'! Properly set up, the sub will only improve your sound.