Road trip to demo $10,000 speakers

skyscraper,
We have somewhat similar spaces and taste. Additionally, I have a penchant for classical and opera. My room is a bit larger with bamboo flooring and several large thick wool area rugs.

Since Heyser in the early 70's my mantra has been "It's not the frequency. It's the time." Sadly the trade rags never focused much on it and once valid publications have devolved into manufacturer cheering sections. Consequently, most of the public is ignorant of phase defects and proper solutions are labor intensive and tend to be 'unconventional'

I loved Quad ESL but limited level and frequency response at both ends disqualified them. Dayton-Wrights were sonically great, of questionable longevity and ZERO WAF.

DQ-10's were my first phased speakers. I mirror-imaged them and modified the XOver to adjust low end response as I had them on stands.
In the mid-70s, 'squids were about $1k. Adjusted for inflation, about $3500 today. Admittedly, the 'squids were little more than utility build and many of today's are gorgeous. However, I'm not buying furniture. Many 3- & 4-way systems have egregiously worse phase response than a $1k 2-way. They go lower and may play louder but for fail miserably on image specificity.

If I still owned DQ-10s, I'd rebuild / have them rebuilt. See http://www.regnar.com/dahlquist-dq-10-speaker-parts.html Replacement of electrolytic and mylar caps with polypropylene will astound. I'd probably add a DQ-89w or two. See http://www.regnar.com/dq-89w-powered-subwoofer-features.html

I cannot listen to MP3s on my system due to nebulous image gallivanting. Any system where any instrument or voice moves regardless of program complexity is disqualified. Listening to uncompressed source in demos of Magico, Focal, Paradigm, KEF and others suffer these defects in multiple salons, so I conclude the defects are natal.

Reticent as I am to recommend, were I to require loudspeakers I'd hear Vandersteens, [see https://vandersteen.com/support/faqs/ and http://greenmountainaudio.com/speaker-time-phase-coherence/ for decent comments on time and phase], Wilson, some B&W, Carver ALS, Magnepan, Martin Logan. There are certainly others. Not sure I would own large planars again, but I would have to hear them. Others with varying parameter requirements will surely howl in protest.

Were I in the market, I might start here: Kii Three https://www.kiiaudio.com/for_home.php sold in the US at GTT Audio https://gttaudio.com/ and reviewed here https://www.stereophile.com/content/kii-audio-three-loudspeaker.

Be very sceptical of manufacturer claims. Many are just plain flat out wrong from an electrical perspective. For example some tout first order slopes for summing. However, that is only valid with drivers that perform identically for at least a couple of octaves above and below the xo frequency AND have physically aligned drivers. Vertical flat baffle? Fogedaboudit!

IMO, the whole small footprint, multi woofer tower on a vertical baffle is fundamentally wrong unless every driver has DSP control AND sophiticated alignment equipment. Ditto vertically mirrored drivers.


Sadly, most forum recommendations are fan-boy ravings, some even by those who don't possess, just lust.

I have Gamut M7 that certainly put all the anterior mentioned to shame. Including the Kantas that wasn't what I expected at all. Gamut M series was replaced with S series buy only for business purposes because the M series was to expensive to built and the profits were not high at 18k. They named RS series and double the price.
Good luck 

I have one suggestion. Bring paper and pen to make notes on speakers, amps, preamps, sources and your thoughts about each audition. 

ieales,

Reading your two posts above is humbling and relieving at the same time. I would dare to say that most of us have not even close to as much understanding of technical details as you do. I, personally, can be described just as skyscraper described himself. Enough knowledge to be dangerous. That was the humbling part, accepting reality that I am clueless.

Relieving part was that, despite the black hole of ignorance, I function on the simple level. "I hear it, I like it, here is my credit card." If I knew all you do, it would drive me crazy. To understand that I am buying something so imperfect would be a torture. Like this, I walk out satisfied. Ignorance is bliss, as they say, and, apparently, there are many blessed ones here.

"However, I’m not buying furniture."

You surely are a hard-core enthusiast. Many speakers are bigger than some of the furniture in the room they are placed in so they are hard to ignore. Once you do not care about that, you have really arrived. Consider yourself lucky.

Some other threads mentioned Boenicke. I looked it up and remebered that I heard the small W5 at a show and they impressed me. You might want to listen to their W11 or W8 floorstanders.