What is under $5k speaker with best bass slam?

I really like my Emerald Physics CS-2's..Man can they do bass!! I wont get "too" carried away here..just go hear them..The buzz is true. Watch out for these! I hear rumblings from dealers about guys selling their $20K Vandy 5's.. 13K Merlins, and Quad 2905's to get these..I dont know for sure, but from what I hear in my system..I could see that happening.

Granted there are obviously some speakers better than others in every price category but forget everything else? No component is an island and the speaker is perhaps more affected by every other element of a system than any other component.

How can anyone possibly tell a speakers' true capability without serious attention given to the electronics, room acoustics, speaker placement, cables, line conditioning, the amount of juice coming from the wall, and vibration management applied to the speakers and to all the other components?

Fall short in any one or two of these categories and you could end up with some of the sloppiest, rolling earthquake-like, ill-defined bass you'd never care to hear unless your cruisin' in your low-rider.

Get all of these elements right and you're in a whole 'nother league and you may find that it matters a little less which speaker you chose. Assuming it's a full-range speaker of course.

All that taken into consideration the tightest, most well-defined, and most realistic bass I've ever heard by far came from a pair of used $4K (new $8700) Aerial Acoustic Model 10T speakers mated to a pair of Nuforce SE Class D amps. Never heard anything even close to it. At least until recently.

Case-in-point, there are plenty of people who will claim the Aerial Model 10T's bass was some of the worst they've ever heard.

-IMO

Hsu STF-1 subwoofer, $299. Add speaker of choice.

:)

In my experience, studio monitors are not going to do that, they are not intended for nor desired to create punchy bass. Just accurate. And typically only to around 40-50 Hz.

Steve

Question for Raquel. I know you owned both Salons and Mahlers. Would you say that the Mahlers were more dynamic and/or played louder than the Salons? Thanks.

Like Shadorne's advice, I also thought about using pro speakers. But I wonder if there's any good looking pro speakers that will not ruin the indoor scene of my house.

Not that I can think of. They all have an industrial look. The Genelec's in White look pretty cool though...