Road trip to demo $10,000 speakers


I'm going to take a several hour road trip to the Washington DC/Baltimore area to demo some speakers in the $10,000 range for a once in a lifetime purchase. I plan on listening to some Magico A3's, Aerial Acoustic 7T's, and Spendor D-9's. One of the dealers also has Paradigm Persona 3F's on the floor, so I'll take a listen to them too. While I'm up there are there any other speakers in that price range you'd recommend I try to locate and take a listen to. I'm open to and welcome your suggestions and will take the time to research each one as well.

I'm not in the market for used equipment. Thanks for any and all suggestions.

Mike



skyscraper
I was at axpona in march and I was looking to spend about $10k on speakers I mean why not? the banks giving .1% on my money, well that lame a$$ excuse was enough to get my wife on board. I didn't care for most of the big speakers in the hotel rooms and loved the little 2 ways. My 3 make that 4 favorite rooms were Neat acoustics, fugly little things that sound musical, Magnepan and Carver also sounded good in the small rooms and the little $20,000 Raidho was amazing. I ended up buying a pair of Revel Salon2's used but they need power and room to breathe. I believe when we get up to $5k with speakers the listening room becomes the most significant factor in how a system is going to sound and that's why I buy used. What happens if after spending 3 days listening to the best on offer you pull the trigger on a pair and they don't jel with your room? I guarantee the salesman will say they need time to break in. Once you pick the speakers you like GET an in home demo!
I know you stated that you're not in the market for used speakers. Is there a particular reason for this? If your budget is 10,000 dollars, you could score a GREAT pair of $30,000 speakers. I saw a pair of Monitor Audio speakers a dealer wanted $12,000.00 for. Would they not work? Just curious.  They were less than three years old. Joe
Glupson, you  could correct as to what "squids" means.

Hddg, thanks for the listening room advice and I'll add your speaker model suggestions to the list. I'm up to about thirty models to check out now. Good grief. I never heard of the XTZ Divine Alphas before. The name is certainly original

Dweller, Hoochie Mama? That might be another good speaker model name.

Mtret, if you come across some Divine Alphas let me know,

Tomic 601, hope you're correct about my listening space. And great advice to hang on to my DQ 10's to play around with learning how to do upgrades. I've been dreaming about building the stands for them, mirror imaging and, replacing the old caps  and piezo tweeter for years. I'll put the DQ's out in my new 24' by 40' woodworking shop when its built. Great idea, And I've added the Vandersteen Treo CT to my "must hear" short list. Thanks.

Passet02, consider it done.

Ieales, thanks again for you input, and putting in a kind word on John Dahlquist the designer of my DQ 10's. I remember reading up on his "phased arrays" back in the 1970's not fully understanding what he was trying to accomplish then, but have enjoyed the results of his approach these many years.

Steve59, great idea to get an in home demo. I only wish it were possible out here in the middle of nowhere.


Mike

"Most playback is so unbelievably and egregiously incoherent as to be unlistenable."
This is puzzling, to say the least. Millions of people listen to their AirPhones daily and have no complaint. We all may have different expectations.
Yeah, this is condescending nonsense with gross exaggerations. I attended a lot of various live performances and don't need lessons in listening and hearing.