Upgrading from Wilson Sophia 2's?

A used pair of Vandersteen 5s would be a fine choice
Perhaps later upgrade them to a pair of 5As
which offer a deep natural sound stage,seamless coherence & frequency balance of course at a higher price.
Both speakers feature self contained bass amp and a neat in room bass tuning that delivers a far smoother in room bass response this allows your music to sound more natural
in your room.
Cheers Johnnyr

French_fries

"listening for 5 min vs. listening for 20 or more..."

Perhaps that's why my local Wilson Dealer only allows for listening to a couple tracks they select at a time, when auditioning Wilson or Ayre gear.

No matter though. Detecting speakers which are predisposed to being more on the articulate side of the coin than that of the eufonic side is no hard task. I simply can not, as another posted here, see Wilson with any power train other than one comprosed of tubes.... but that's just me.

Just heard the Magico V2 again today at my dealer. Compared them to Rockport and Verity at the same price point. The Magicos were extremely involving, detailed, nuanced, not fatiguing and simply a joy to listen to. Compared to my Egglestons, they are more articulate and have much better, deeper and clearer bass with no overhang. They are musical. Best I've heard.

So you went back for more, huh, Peter? You getting serious?

Thanks again to everyone for their thoughts. I agree that a tube amp would probably curtail the edge a bit, but I'd be worried about bass control. I have a VTL ST-150 (that I use in another system) that I tried and the bass was just plain sloppy. I worry that with a tube amp I'd need to have speakers with built in amps for low frequencies (like Vandersteen or Genesis).

Dave, interesting about your experiences with Monster cable. I've done a fair amount of cable swapping. Part of my challenge is a 50 foot speaker run. At this length, the cables make a huge difference, but tonally and grain. I'm currently using a high gauge cable from Paul Speltz (anti-cables) that are working out well and have seemed to reduce the glare a bit.

Just buy the next pair of used 5A's and be done with it! :-)

Don't you wish that I had sold you mine and not decided to keep them??

I am not so sure that Madfloyd needs to replace the Sophia 2's - he might just need to find some good tube amplification to drive them.

The question is, what would provide the tube magic and work in Madfloyd's dual purpose system? I know he likes the sound of my tube amps (Atma-Sphere MA-1's), but they just won't work in his setup.

George