Small room, "budget priced" speaker advice, please


Hi,

I recently sold my dearly beloved, old Vandersteen 2C's here on Audiogon (and I hope SgtPeppers is loving them at this moment!) :-) I did this because in our remodeled house, my new listening room (which will double as a guest room) is just too small for the 2C's. The Spousal Acceptance Factor was just too low. ;-)

I have a PS Audio Elite-Plus integrated amp for power (around 70 W/Ch) and a soon-to-be-shipped-off-for-a-refurb Sota Sapphire for an analog front end (I have "miles" of vinyl)! I will also get a CD player at some point.

For now, I need to find a pair of best-of-breed, truly "budget" speakers. By "budget," I'm talking upper limit of $850/pair. (Gone are my free-spending, single days... I'm a dad now...) :-)

Listening habits: lots of 60's and 70's folk and rock, some jazz, Donald Fagen/Steely Dan, a little classical. Listening volume: not too loud. Sonic preferences: I value transparency and imaging/soundstage. Bass should be accurate above all, as opposed to chest-pounding powerful.

I've looked at Paradigms, which I know are highly regarded at lower price points. Trouble is, our one, local dealer is primarily a TV/home theater outfit, so you're trying to hear them in a showroom crammed with other stuff... you know the drill. I've also hit a high end shop. Listened to a pair of PSB small towers and disliked them; they sounded muddy and veiled to me. Listened to a pair of the smallest Rega's and liked them quite a bit, but would want to go back to listen again. I even wrote to PS Audio for advice; they recommended the "baby" Epos monitors, but they're out of my price range.

Thanks if you've read this far. Knowing how subjective all this is, I'd still welcome any advice you have to offer about what I should try to audition.
rebbi
Wanted to toss this into the sub-discussion on this thread regarding omni versus conventional imaging.

Was just listening to "Open Arms" by Journey on standard issue "Greatest Hits CD" on my larger Ohm 5's.

This track has an interesting piano solo opening that lends itself well as a test case in point to the discussion regarding imaging.

Now I doubt anybody would cite these Journey tunes as shining examples of simple two mike audiophile recordings, because overall they are the exact opposite. Also, I've found over the years that many of these Journey tunes sound crappy on crappy systems but hold together pretty well overall on better systems.

So here is what I hear on the Ohm 5's. The piano solo is clearly miked in stereo in a manner that individual keys are clearly located in correct order by note and octave from lower to the left to upper to the right. This is about an 18-20' wide sound stage with my setup, so there is clear separation between individual keys. Also, the soundstage ranges from almost floor level to the ceiling, about 8-9 feet tall.

I also then listened to the same passage on my Dynaudio Contour mkIIs. This is same source and everything with my system. The only difference is the room, which is much smaller, 12X12 approximately, speaks, and speaker cables used. The Dynaudios use Audioquest cv-6 speaker cables which cost something like several hundred dollars whereas fairly conventional industrial grade in-wall speaker wires run to the Ohms.

With the Dynaudios, similar results. However in the smaller room, with narrower sound stage, the individual notes were more closely spaced and a bit harder to pick out accordingly, yet everything still was located in the correct relative position based on note and octave. The soundstage was not as extended vertically and tended to occur mostly at about the same height as the monitors on their stands.

Now once the rest of the tune kicked in, it is no longer even a fair contest. The Dynaudios would need a subwoofer in order to have any chance of hanging with the Ohms in terms of overall impact, dynamics and presentation at a realistic SPL.
Knownothing wrote:

"After recent listening sessions, I would also recommend the match to the your new CDP, the Music Hall a25.2, as a viable and less expensive alternative to the others."

Yeah, I had thought of the a25.2. Wally at Underwood HiFi has them for $480! You can't beat that price. I'd just need to add a phono preamp to that. Any suggestions there?
Knownothing,

Actually, Wally at Underwood HiFi has the Music Hall a25.2 for $480! The question is, what would I do for a phono section?
If your cartridge is MM, the Music Hall Bellari phono pre-amp seems reasonably priced. Never heard it though.
Rebbi,

Can't offer much here. I am not crazy about the phono stage in my integrated amp, and am looking for an outboard replacement myself. Mapman's suggestion of the Bellari VP129 is one I am considering.

Reviews can be found here:

http://www.lpgear.com/Bellari_VP129.pdf

http://www.lpgear.com/TASBellari.pdf

I am also looking at solid state models from Creek, Rega, Pro-Ject and Cambridge, but the Bellari looks like the best bet.