Kthomas -
My suggestion would be for you to invest some of that money in airline tickets (prices are quite low now) and travel to audition speakers that made your shortlist. Some dealers (such as yours truly) will help you with accomodations, and maybe even airfare if you end up purchasing from them.
It really isn't necessary to listen in your own room to make a well-educated choice. Let me offer a few ideas to make your auditioning most effective:
Start out at a pretty much normal volume level listening from the "sweet spot", to see if you like the overall presentation of the speaker. Do you want to tap your feet? Can you easily pick out and follow a single instrument? Listen especially to human voice and piano (or whatever instrument you are most familiar with). Can you hear the textures and inner harmonics of the instrument? Do the notes (piano in particular) decay naturally? Do you hear any grain, any boxiness, any harshness (especially on close-miked female vocals)? Can you readily follow the notes the bass player is playing? Going beyond hearing, does the music speak to your soul and make you feel? Music is as much an emotional as an auditory experience.
Assuming the answer to most of these questions is "yes", we need to predict the long-term listening enjoyment of the speakers, because you probably won't have several days to audition them at length if you travelled for the audition.
For each of the following tests, listen to the same track from the beginning. Go back and start over again for each test.
First, turn the volume level way down low, so you can barely hear it. At very low volume levels, you really can't hear the bass - mostly what you hear is midrange, because the ear is most sensitive to midrange frequencies at very low volumes. What we're doing here is isolating the midrange to see if there are any peaks or colorations. At normal volume levels, the bass can mask midrange peaks. Is the music still enjoyable at very low volumes, or does the midrange grate on you?
Now return the volume level to normal, and listen from very close to the speakers, like two or three feet away. Now you are isolating the first-arrival sound. Any harshness will stand out more, since it won't be masked by the reverberant sound. Note also the tonal balance.
Now turn the volume level up a bit louder than normal, and leave the room, leaving the door open. From outside the room all you can possibly hear is the reveberant field response. The speaker can't possibly image out here, so it has to rely on its reverberant field response and dynamics to sound convinving. Does it? Is there a convincing illusion of live music happening back in there? Is the tonal balance the same as when you listened near-field?
Come back in the room and walk around. Is the sound really only enjoyable from the sweet spot? Remember that live music sounds wonderful from anywhere in the room, and even in the next room.
The low-volume and next-room tests are very good predictors of long term listening enjoyment, especially the latter.
When you're done with these tests, you can go ahead and play some sonic fireworks cuts or whatever you want, but I would suggest bringing at least one poor recording of music you like, and one good recording of music that you don't like. See if the speakers extract enjoyment from the poor recording, and see if they can induce you to enjoy a good recording of the kind of music you normally wouldn't listen to.
A speaker that passes all of these tests is probably going to find a home with you.
Best of luck in your quest!
To Ehider -
I got a very nice e-mail from you and tried to respond, but it got kicked back saying that "mediaone.net domain no longer in use".
Do you have an alternative e-mail?
