Suggestions for Full Range Speakers up to 10K


Hi Everyone,
I am new here and I am working on a home theater/2 channel combined living room setup.  My room is shared with a kitchen (island counter separates kitchen from living room).  My original plan was to convert my 2 car garage into a home theater as I have a walk in cooler there with 5 beer taps through the wall. My wife is not fond of the garage idea, but I think I could convince her to do a full 2 channel setup out there and leave the HT setup in the living room where it is now.  But in the meantime, I'll continue getting the living room dialed in.

My setup is as follows:

Marantz AV7704 pre
Marantz MM8807 amp - currently pushing my center channel, sides and rears. No height speakers at this time.
Peachtree Nova300 - currently doing double duty pushing floor standing fronts using HTB for the HT usage.  I understand this is not the highest end, but you have to start somewhere, and it actually sounds pretty nice, even if the buttons are flimsy-ish.

Fronts are ML Motion 40's, center is ML Motion 30, sides and rears are older Aperion bookshelves that I plan to upgrade down the road, but they are sounding ok for these duties for the time being. I like the combination of the 40's with the Nova300, as I run though the DAC into this amp via USB-B in from a Mac with all my FLAC files on it. Sounds decent to my ears and is more than loud enough but I think the mid and low end needs a bit more presence though. 

Room is 16' x 24' but opens into a kitchen and has a hallway leading to the back part of the house where bedrooms are. My main wall with my projector screen on it and all my components is about 12 feet wide as I have a desk in the corner and a kitchen counter on the opposite side.  Ceilings are beamed, and I have multiple bay windows that are covered with shades.  I would say the room is harder than softer with respect to sound reflection versus absorption.

My thinking is to add a full range speaker in the spaces between the center channel and Motion 40's, which is about 22" of space to work with, up to 46" tall (bottom of my screen) and 30" deep. I was originally considering a pair of subs in this space, but having them able to do double duty for music and HT seems more difficult to deal with as most subs have the controls on the back and I don't feel like reaching back there every time I want to go between HT and 2 channel work.  And frankly a good set of full range speakers shouldn't need a sub for 2 channel work. I think I will do one big sub later for HT use only, but I'd rather focus on the 2 channel part first. Another option is to replace the Motion 40's with a fuller sounding speaker altogether, but I figured since I have the extra room from the MM8077, I can push the Motion 40's from that amp and move over to a fuller sounding full range for my 2 channel application. 

I'd love to hear some expert opinions on what speakers would make sense for my application.

Thanks in advance.
irrenarzt
In my experience - Ariel sounds very close to Totem acoustics.  Both great speakers.  I have the Forest and a bookshelf speaker and never complained.  As you mention rocking out I would go the Revel route as I have those also.  The F208 is incredibly balanced, articulate and powerful. The bass can vibrate my couch seats.  

Other speakers I tried in Home: Ariel, Golden Ear and PSB (also very good).  There are many fine choices but making the cost and long term investment it really pays to listen for your personal preference.
I’m sure Paradigm would work nicely as well.  Always wanted to demo Kef but haven’t had the chance yet.  Love the blades look.
Another vote here for Revel.  Look at the F208 or F228 Be.  Think I'd skip the Studio2's.  Used Salon2s also in your budget but I think they would be too tall.  I have owned F208's and Salon 2's....and heard the 228's.  I think the F228 Be is the one for you.  They are fantastic.  
Wait...………

Did I read right?

"Walk in cooler with five beer taps"

Now, that has my attention! 

God Bless your wife! 

Speakers? Good luck with that choice...……….. 

Sincerely, your beer drinking buddy, Mark 

PS: Are you close to STL? I'm thirsty.....


Snell has been out of business for years.

As per audio jewlery if you are not happy with a products looks find something that looks and sounds good, to the two Vandy fanboys,  your worldview is awefully narrow there are quite a number of great speakers that sound as good or perhaps better.

I would be more than happy to compare a set of legacy Focus Se at $7k to any $10k and above speakers.

The new Quad Z4 at $5k are amazing sounding with a purity and musicallity that is out of this world  for the price.

The Legacys havc fantastic bass no sub required and they are 91db effcient. 

The Quads go somewhat low but are not super low speakers so u might need a sub.

We sold Usher for years the Legacys and Quads are better.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ


I am adding my recent speaker experience to this thread in the hope that it will be useful for other loudspeaker buyers.

My wife and I started listening to loudspeakers at local hi-fi shops last January, just to see if we could hear any significant improvement over the KEF 104.2 speakers I have had since 1992. There were indeed some real improvements, although that may in part have been due to the 104.2 price having been $2200, and my new speaker budget being $10,000.

After hearing a bunch of speakers in that price range, our strong preference was for the Paradigm Persona 3F. They sound great! I had not considered KEF, because I had been living with KEF for so long. After finding the KEF Reference 3 in a shop where we had gone to hear other speakers, we both fell in love with their sound. It was akin to the KEF 104.2 sound, but quite a LOT better!

I am not writing to suggest the KEF Reference 3 for the starter of this thread. I realize that they are an inch too tall, and $4,000 over his $10,000 price range. Besides, speaker preferences are highly subjective. I am writing to warn others about what I learned after I set up the new Reference 3 in my listening room. On their own, the Reference 3 speakers have too much bass output for my room. The room is 16'x16' with an 8 foot ceiling. The speakers are 17 inches from the front wall, and 17 inches from the side wall, just as KEF recommends. Still, the bass output was too much by a lot!

The happy part of my story is that I use an Anthem processor, which has ARC room correction. ARC set the subwoofer crossover to 160hz. Although the sound was good, this seems incredibly high for such large full range speakers. I sent my ARC curves to a technician at Anthem, and he told me that the high crossover frequency was due to the bass output from the front speakers being much too high for ARC to flatten. the ARC algorithm got better results by using the subwoofer up to 160hz.

The next chapter of the story is that yesterday, a set of Tri-Traps arrived from GIK Acoustics. They are standing from floor to ceiling in the front corners of the listening room. I have listened to the new sound, and it is improved by a lot. The sound from the speakers, with no ARC and no subwoofer, is great. The bass is a little exaggerated on some of my bass heavy test tracks, but most music is great. Like the 104.2 speakers, the deepest bass (probably under 35 Hz) from the Reference 3 speakers is not as clean as from my 12-inch subwoofer. Very little of my music collections have bass energy this low. Nevertheless, I knew which tracks to test with. Soon I will recalibrate with ARC.

I wrote this to give others a heads up about matching loudspeakers to rooms. I realize that many in this group know even more about such things than me, but heads up to any who do not think about it. I am sure that aggravating the loud bass is the fact that my 104.2 speakers had a port in the front, while the Reference 3 speakers have 2 ports on the back. Some on this thread already warned about port locations.

When I bought smaller and less expensive loudspeakers, I was usually given the opportunity to borrow speakers to hear them in my room. Others (like the 104.2) came with a 30-day return policy. I do not know if any large high-end speakers are sold this way. I asked, and the KEF speakers definitely did not have any "try before you buy" option. These speakers are built to order in England. Delivery took almost a month.

All-in-all I am really excited and happy with the terrific sound from this system! My wife likes it too. She is an angel for letting me put this big 2.1 channel system with room treatments in HER bedroom! I am a lucky guy. :)

Sorry if this post is a bit too long, but if I were not me, I would enjoy reading it.

Regards,
Tom Shults