Vote for the best speakers in 10K range

Subaruguru, Merci de votre reponse. Je dois ajouter que je n'ai pas entendu Les Parsifals Encores, mais juste Les Parsifals et je ne sais pas quels developpements ils ont fait pour ameliorer le Parsifal. Il faut admettre que les hauts-parleurs aient ete demontre avec les "woofers" emettant le son vers le mur plutot qu'en face de nous, mais apres m'avoir entendu plaindre depuis quelques minutes de la base profonde absente , le vendeur a tourne la boite woofer vers nous. Bien sur, c'etait une enceinte avec un son "tiede", donc, on attendrait qu'il ait porte assez de frequences bases. Mais, ce n'etait que les frequences bases plus profondes qui etaient manquantes. J'ai trouve cette bande de frequences beaucoup trop "tight" ou "supprime". Par exemple, les parsifals n'ont demontre aucune tendance a ebranler la salle sur la deuxieme bande du CD "Surfacing" par Sara McLaughlan. D'autres CD's portant la base profonde nous ont montre la meme chose. Peut-etre que les enceintes se trouvaient trop loin du mur pour produire les fortes bases frequences. Mais, est-ce que vous pensez de pouvoir les utiliser sans un "subwoofer" est d'etre heureux avec la reproduction des frequences bases profondes? Merci.

Apres avoir relu votre reponse, je comprends que vous etes heureux de la base, je crois, sans subwoofer. Regardant mes notes de la demonstration, je n'ai pas ecrit quels equippements etaient utilises pour les demontrer et maintenant, apres longtemps, je ne m'en souvenais pas. La difference entre ma perception et votre experience prouve que les demonstrations au magasin sont beaucoup plus inutiles que les demonstrations chez nous. Il est probable que vous ayez raison et je me sois trompe de la capabilite base profonde des Parsifals a cause d'une mauvaise demonstration.

Hi Telescope, so you took the plunge. Sounds like you made the right decision. Congratulations!

So....Bob,

Are you trying to say you like these beasts? :>)
Great. Just what I need - another Holy Grail to pursue!

Schubertmaniac--- couldn't agree more with you about Maggies/SLs/boxes. I've owned Maggies since mid-'70s----most recently 3.5Rs (which I still have. HP likes 3.5Rs/3.6Rs when combined with a subwoofer, but if you start adding up what it costs to bi-amp, with the extra amps, interconnects, speaker cables, subwoofer, etc., as the monkey said when he peed in the cash register: "This is gonna run into money!" And fast!)----but the SL A-3s (same as M-2s, functionally) I bought about a month ago are in a totally different class. Transparency/natural timbre are strong points, AND they've got as much accurate bass as I could ever hope for. (Caveat--I listen to classical music almost exclusively----YMMV.) I've gotta say, however, that the Maggies perhaps do image a bit better, although I'm still experimenting with speaker placement.(Unfortunately, at least IMHO, there are more compromises in speakers than in any other component, except perhaps phono cartridges, the other end of the chain. Maybe in the future there will be one speaker that does it all, but that doesn't seem to be the case at the moment.) Can't speak for the Maggie 20s----I've never heard them----but I'm extremely happy with SLs. I've heard there is a long waiting list for any of the Maggies (about the same for SLs, also!).

As for box speakers, there are without doubt some excellent ones---- I'll be the last to criticize anyone's choice---- but to be perfectly honest, the only ones I've "listened to" in some 25 years were a pair of Revels in a salon when auditioning a Sony 9000ES recently. The only demo classical SACD they had was of Glenn Gould, so I couldn't tell much about image/soundstage, etc. I guess Maggies and SLs have simply convinced me I'm a planar nut.

BTW----in my limited experience, some SL dealers will knock a bit off the retail price----seems to be discretionary. Also, beware of some of the used SLs on various classifieds. From what I've heard/read, Dr. West, the SL designer, is constantly "tweaking", so what seems to be a bargain may be otherwise, depending on year of manufacture, fixes/upgrades that have been done, etc. There have been many improvements over the years. Get serial numbers, contact the factory, and they can tell you about the history as they know it.
Jim