best 5-20K speakers for high-end tube amp?

I just found the speakers for my system- a pair of $500 ELOD floorstanders that I had retired for surround duty when I got my B&W804s.

After upgrading most of my front-end (top-end tubes everywhere, good cabling, power conditioning, isolation), I started to get much better sound from my 804s, including noticeable bass extension and clarity, midrange smoothness, detail, etc., but they were still far from what I expect from my system. I've auditioned dozens of speakers in every price category (from 2k-40k) over the last month, but hadn't found my perfect speaker yet. I was desperate enough today to order a high-sensitivity box or horn speaker online without auditioning, when I figured I should try my old speakers I've had for 5 years.

Wow! My sound system came to life. The Elods completely outclasses the 804s with my tube amps, and the overall sound is on par or better than most of the high-end systems I've been listening to, including many with 20k to 30k speakers. I'm convinced with proper placement and room treatment, soundstaging and other 'audiophile' qualities would improve, but right now the musicality and sweetness of sound is amazing.

Talk about source first. I'm pumping about $60,000 of front-end into $500 speakers.

I just discovered this an hour ago, so I haven't tinkered with the front-end to see where the responsibility lies. So far I switched out the Kondo silver cabling, and the magic disappeared. These are absolutely amazing speaker cables, btw. I A/B'ed them against its smaller sibling which only uses half the silver wiring, and still extremely expensive. I was fully expecting to buy the 'cheaper' one, but the sound quality was at least double, proportionally in line with the price (I figure in audio if you're ever on the linear part of the quality/expensive curve, that's a good deal).

I wonder what even a 2-3k high-sensitivity speaker would sound like in my system. Perhaps these ELODs are just sensitive enough to get out of the way and let me Jadis do its thing, I haven't checked their specs. In any case, I definitely recommend against using B&Ws with low-powered tube amps, as I've seen people recommend. Anyways, I'm happy with the sound finally, and might wait until CES 2006 before making a more informed speaker upgrade than I was just about to do!

Unless I get the upgrade bug earlier...:-)

May I suggest build your own speakers?
Since you are in China, finding the right folks to build speaker cabinets for you would be quite easy.
For starters, I would recommend the vintage EV 12TRXB and Jensen CX-120 coxial drivers.

This is what I build for myself:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze7qf7h/cx120.html

Here is a link on the ev 12trxb

http://www.geocities.com/tadgesualdo/12trxbmanifesto.html

One of the most sought after coxial is the Jensen G610 drivers.

With these speakers, you don't even need expensive audiophile speaker cables any more.

That's a great suggestion. I can't access your site from China (geocities is censored) on this computer, but I'll check it out soon.

I don't wanna put a lot of time into it though, this recent 'hifi obsession' is dominating all my free time now, seriously eating into other priorities..

I'm surprised those cables wouldn't still be useful. I guess you mean that with sensitive speakers, it wouldn't matter so much if the speaker cable degraded the source signal?

I've been experimenting madly with power cords on my CD player and preamp, and find they make a remarkable difference. I know there's huge debates about impact of power cords, and this is my first experience A/Bing them, and I find it hard to imagine people wouldn't notice the difference given a revealing enough system. My Isoclean Focus cables are practically unlistenable they compress the sound so much (maybe i shouldn't have said that, now i plan to hawk them on audiogon :-)...ok, we could say they add a certain rough texture/flavor to the sound, which actually sounds better on some instrumentation through exaggeration..plus synergy counts right?), I'm so glad I got these Siltech G6 cables on a risk, they really open up the sound. I've discovered now that without them, along with the Kondo speaker cables, my system doesn't have its magic.

btw, i think i'm gonna change my username, not that i'm hiding anything. i wanted to change it a while ago, but had all these threads going. since i might start transacting on audiogon, i don't wanna get stuck with a username i don't like...it's plainly obvious i'm an audio slouch compared to everyone around here...

Hi been away.

Sold my Avantgarde Duos and bought a pair of Hyperion 938, my budget was $15000 but got these as an interim prurchase for $4000. Never regretted selling the Avantgardes once. Suddenly I had bass I had TONAL COLOURS with great inner detail NOT JUST WARMTH. A soundstage was suddenly once again apparent. It was quite plainly very involving musically. I owned the Avantgardes for two years so I did like them. Had valve amps, solid state amps had the Jadis JA 80's etc. No way does it compare to a good cone design.

Exiting and can be electrifying when set up right, but not a great all rounder and not the most natural sounding by a long margin in my opinion.

If you want it to be electrifying dyanmic and exciting you have to give up a little of the tonal riches which to me make music special. You use a Jadis and yes you get warmth but you lose transparency and a little of the electrifying presence. Their bass is one of the worse I have come across from any speaker and I have owned which include Audio Physic Avantis, Harbeths, Quads, etc.

Just look at the two two intermnet reviewers Steve roachlin and Sjragen, I believe they have both given up their duos for paper cones.

http://www.horninghybrid.com/agathon.htm