Fun, small footprint, floor standers


Anyone have any suggestions for a "fun" to listen to, small foorprint (think PSB Alpha, or Monitor Audio RS6), floorstander?
mjmch2003
10-22-13: Tbromgard
Yes I have the Prelude Plus in my living room. They sound great. If you like the Prelude you will love the Plus.
I also am considering various speakers in the $2K range and started looking at the Prelude Plus. I would be putting them in a 13x23 living room with high ceiling and facing an open architecture into the front hall and dining area. They would have a wall behind them for bass reinforcement with that rear-firing port. I also have a couple of nice little 8" subs I can put with them to augment the bass down to around 36 Hz.

Under those conditions, do you think the PPs be up to filling an area that size without straining? I listen to a lot of acoustic music (vocals, jazz) and also large scale symphonic, but not at headbanging levels. Do you think the Prelude Plus would be up to that size space?
The Regular Prelude can kick it up pretty loud in my medium-large room so I bet the Plus with all those drivers can do even better.
Much as I love my love my Preludes I think a room that big is pushing it for Symphonic music. IF you can integrate the
subs maybe, but that's something I've never been able to do myself for classical, you might get the bass response that is so essential in Symphonic , but the "tunefulness" is another matter. I tried them myself in a room that size, the magic they had/have in a 13x 12 room was largely missing.
I might look towards PSB or KEF myself.
FYI-Preludes themselves get down into 30's .
My 10 year old REL Q150e integrates very well with the Preludes in my medium-large listening room, they sound great playing classical music with the REL providing that "room charge" they do so well, and I have to wonder how people actually listen to systems in large rooms? Do you sit 40 feet away across the room from the system and try to get it up to 115 db? If your system is more or less along a wall (with proper speaker placement somewhat away from that wall), and your butt is in reasonable proximity to the speakers, what effect does that large room have? Ambient squeaking from the butler's loafers? Cuban cigar smoke fogging the highs? The dreaded "flapping tapestries?" The maid's feather duster absorbing some detail? Those damn downstairs workers clanging pots and getting arrested for crimes for which they are innocent and eventually returning to work to bathe in the intrigue of early 20th century England? That last one might be extreme...but anyway...
WOlf,

I use the OHM F5 series 3 speakers in my fairly large L shaped room.

The OHMs are essentially omnidirectional and sound similar form most any location in front of them. They are located in teh bottom of the L, 5 feet or more from closest walls. I listen from anywhere within the length of the L in front of them. The differences are in line with those one would hear from different locations in the same room were there a live act performing up front. The main thing that changes is perspective and width and depth of soundstage, not tonality. Sometimes I sit in the front row, either dead center or off to the left or right outside the closest speaker, sometimes I stand all the way in the rear just to soak it all in. My preferred listening position is about 8-10 feet in front of teh right speaker. That's more or less like sitting about 1/3 of the way back in your favorite jazzclub. My room is closest to layout and sound to the Village Vanguard in NYC of all the places I have been that anyone might have heard of.

No butler or tapestries, and my wife and daughter would have my head if I smoked a cuban cigar down there, so can't comment on that one. I do like to play it loud from time to time but also trying to preserve my 50+ year old hearing still. :^)