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Traditional looking speakers

Suggestions please. I've been living with low end audio equipment for a long time. Now that I am completing a family room addition I am ready to purchase some great sounding equipment.
I want to start with speakers and build a system around them. Room size 17 X 18 with 10' ceiling. Speaker budget $2,500 plus or minus for pair. I need speakers that are "traditional looking". In other words GMA Europa, Meadoelarks, Maggies, etc. are all out of consideration although they all sound great. We listen to a lot of female vocals and acoustic music.
In short, I need speakers that are attractive when my eyes are open, and sound like the band is in the room with me when my eyes are closed.
I know "Beauty is in the eye of the speaker lover".
murphyboy2fbd
clarkbar127
1 posts
 
If you are building a system, maybe start with 2 channel and work your way up. Working with 2500 I would suggest looking into NAD, Rotel, and Arcam. These are great receivers for the price and will drive almost anything. For front floor standing speakers I recommend Paradigm Monitor 11 (not 9), Reference 60 or 100 depending on budget. It takes some hunting but also look at B&W if you want nice detail (to some they are bright) Dynaudio because of their oversized voice coils (awesome for vocals, jazz, classical, acoustic) Revel F30,F32, or Vandersteen 2Ce or newer. I am sure that you can create a killer 2 channel set up with 2500 looking at those brands. Good luck and have fun!
villamina
1 posts
 
Might want to check my vintage B&W DM6 for sale in Au'gon.
lakefrontroad
302 posts
 
Used pair of Von Schweikert VR4Jr's.

Not bad looking. Short. Simple.

Dynamics of a moving army and plenty of elegance in the mids and highs.

Bargain at $2950 listed here on Audiogon.
mt10425
1,138 posts
 
This may cause some rebuttal and that's okay. I believe that speakers should be your last purchase, not your first. Buy your equipment first, get quality stuff that sounds synergistically good together, is easy to use (if that's inportant to you), has a history of reliability and has all the bells/whistles/power that you want. Spend down to your $2500 plus cables (people have different formulas for cable spending, mine is about 15% +/- of the total value of the rest of the system). I'm a firm believer that good speakers driven by average sources and amplification can only sound average at best. However, high quality components will make pretty good speakers sound their best. Speakers can only relay the signal provided to them, the better the source and signal, the better the sound. Just my opinion, it's your money. Good luck and have fun.
glide3
402 posts
 
There are a pair of Audio Note speakers in your price range on A-gon. These are excellent speakers particularly for the type of music you describe and are about as traditional looking as you can get.

PS I have nothing to do with the seller
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