New Speakers 1k

Von Schweikert Audio has introduced a new monitor speaker at $995 nominal, with 'introductory' pricing. They intend it to be a world-beater, and it's worth checking. Not very tall, sort of stout in proportions, but nice looking and with a superb wood finish for this price range. The single most impressive 'real world' speaker I heard at CES was the new column from IMF Audio. It's $1500, and still 4-6 weeks from availability, but I have to mention it, because it was stunningly good, and gorgeous looking. About 4' tall, made from 6" PVC pipe with a 6" heavy aluminum full-length plate inserted as the face, with MTM drivers. Very nicely finished in veneer or leather. Elegant! This is a seriously good speaker from a new guy who has purchased the remains of Bud Fried's company. This speaker (all Muse front end, including new Model 10 multi-format player) stripped so many veils from the music, it was awesome! imfaudio.com.

Anything by Triangle..

Triangles are a bit too bright, even to a fellow frenchman.
For around $1k I prefer the Spendor S3/1p or even the phenomenal SC3 centers turned sideways (think of them as S3/5 with a second mid/woofer, and thus 89 dB/w instead of 84! Too bad Spendor doesn't have the sense to market them as a left-right pair! At $1400/pr list I prefer them to the S3/1p somewhat as they seem faster. Cheers.

The S3/5 does work very nicely close to a rear wall. Its limited bass and lack of port gives a very nice bass response even when placed directly on the wall. I'm not sure you can beat it. I'm not sure if the harbeth is significantly better for the money but between the two I'm sure you'll find a winner.
Of course imaging dissapears as the rear wall gets close, which is too bad.

I have owned other Vandersteens and am very familiar with the 1c. Great sounding speakers but unfortunately not very good looking. Trying to replace them will be tough. I "replaced" my 2ce's with B&W DM602S2 but I didn't do this to get any improvement in sound and only use this system for background music most of the time. I do have the Spendor S3/5 in another system in a small room (they would not work in the larger room where I had the Vandy's).
I am also not sure whether an all tube amp would be the best choice for the Spendor, whereas the aforementioned B&W's need a tube amp to sound their best. There are not a lot of good looking speakers that can be placed close to a wall and still sound good. Good luck.