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"Bookshelf" speakers designed to be placed near the wall behind them?

I'm giving up my beloved (14-year love affair) Sonus Faber Cremonas in order to reclaim valuable floor space in the living room.  Currently they are placed on the floor in front of the fireplace & hearth - our new home has pretty much everything we wanted, *except* an audio-friendly layout in the living room.

My plan is to put a pair of smaller speakers up on the hearth on either side of the fireplace.  Probably will need custom stands to get the tweeters near ear level.  The hearth is 13.5" above the floor and is about 19" deep.

My first candidate was the Wilson Audio Duettes, a speaker explicitly designed for placement in close proximity to the wall behind them, *until* I saw their price - $22k.  I'm sure they're spectacular speakers, but that's well above my retired-guy budget.  I'd like to stay at $5k or under.  So I started looking at bookshelf speakers that are either sealed-box or front-ported ...

And I came across the Aerial 5T - a $4k speaker with a 1" woven ring-dome tweeter, a 6.7" papyrus-blend woofer and a front slot-shaped port.  *And* it's specifically designed to be placed from 2" to 24" from walls.  So that's my current front-runner.

But I'd be interested to hear others' recommendations - I certainly haven't looked at all the possibilities that are out there.  So let me know your thoughts!

Thanks
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Showing 1 response by kahlenz

kahlenz
168 posts
 
I have the Harbeth P3esr speakers, and they live about 1' from the wall on SoundAnchor stands.  They sound great (but they do open up a bit when I move them into the room for critical listening).  They are the only Harbeth speakers to use a "sealed box" design (the others have ports), which gives the P3esr speakers quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to placement.

I must add that I replaced the floor spikes on the SoundAnchors with plain steel carriage bolts (round head).  I have a resilient laminate floor (Karndean Loose Lay, specially chosen for its acoustic properties, among other things) over concrete.  Moving the speakers is no big deal, and does not poke holes in the floor!  Moving speakers spiked to the floor can be a hassle.  Costs practically nothing to try!
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