Classical Nirvana for 10-15K

My apology for any confusion. I accidentally sent my last
email out on my wife's audiogon account.

Thanks sugarbrie. You have suggested a much better
question than the one I asked, and answered it. It is
likely that I will go with B&W nautilus speakers. I
understand that B&W makes a subwoofer voiced to match
the nautilus line. Have you ever heard this sub?
What makes the REL that much better?

I am not very familiar with the current crop of high end B&W subs. However the ASW-800 (the Matrix sub) was very very good, and was a great match for the Matrix 800 series. No reason to think the new ones would be any less. The REL's are usually a good match for most speaker lines.

I heard the B&W nautilus + sub with classe amplification. Probably due to room acoustics, the sound was a tad on the dry side; but, generally beautiful. However, that speaker combo alone was easily in your *system* investment range. That leaves precious little for the rest of the system -- or if I'm missing s/thing, pls excuse.
Agreeing w/ Sugar's note about bass clarity & tonal accuracy, I'd also stress the importance of highs -- to bring out harmonics+timbre. Of course, effortless dynamics are a must IMO -- hence the quality of the pre. Cheers!

I have a couple recs, though my system is a bit different. I run a pair of ATC Active 100's. They're internaly TRI-amped, so you don't need any amps. I run them Directly from my Sony CD player which has variable output control. It doesn't get any simpler or cleaner than that! The ATC 100's run $14,600/pr. But you also need a CD such as a Wadia, or other that has Variable outs. which would bust your range. So here's my recommendation:

A pair of ATC Active 50's ($12,950/pr) and use the other $2K for cables and a CD/SACD player w/ variable outs.
The low end is still pushing 25 Hz. They're 3way's.

ATC took the Stereophile System of the year for 2001. They've done only ProAudio and Studios. Now they've moved into Residential. 60% of the world's recording studios use ATC. Check out their website: www.atc.gb.net

I can put you in touch w/ the guy that I bought mine from here in Denver. They're completely the most natural and relatistic sound you'll ever experience w/ the most GIGANTIC soundstage imaginable. I went to CES this year, SONY's SACD booth had 5 ATC 150's to demo their new surround SACD format. The most amazing sound I've ever heard. I actually moved to ATC from my Aerial Acoutics 8b's and Bryston 7b-st monoblocks! I didn't think that there was even a comparison!!!

At least give the website a test drive to see if I'm completely full of it or not. Warning, the website isn't awesome, but there's a ton of great articles and info if you can dig your way through it... Good luck.