Help me w/ small towers-bedroom HT/music system


I'm looking to pick up a set of small towers <$1500 to put in my bedroom for 60% movies/40% music. We have a 50" plasma on the wall across from the bed and watch a lot of Blu-ray movies there. Now I have put a receiver in there and hooked up some old PSB small towers which sound atrocious. Thus my interest in a new set. Initially, I plan to just run 2.0, with the option at some point of adding a center. I actually think small towers will generate enough bass for us, so not looking to get a sub at this point.

My priorities are an open, dynamic sound, good vocal reproduction, imaging, work well with receiver power, clear highs but without sibilance. Regarding bass, I am more interested in the quality of the bass than below 40hz.

mtrot
Thanks, I didn't know much about the Silverlines. The Revel F12 that was on Agon is sold already, anyway. Now, I've also found out about Vienna Acoustics, and there are several pairs of used ones available.

But, I will check out the Silverlines.
I got to listen to Vienna Acoustics Beethoven Baby Grand today as well as a Sonus Faber Liuto. The Viennas sounded great on instruments, but required a very exact sweet spot in order for a female vocalist to appear in the middle. Just moving my head a few inches left or right resulted in total loss of the center positioning of the singer. The speakers were toed in quite a bit, so perhaps it was setup. The Liuto allowed for a broader area left/right in which the vocalist seemed pretty much centered, but I didn't think the instruments were as clear and accurate as with the Viennas.

I also didn't realize how physically small the Viennas are, considering that the Beethoven Baby Grand is larger than either the Bach Grand or Mozart Grand.
Another +1 for Totem Arro for a bedroom HT/music system. Strong WAF. If you plan on using surrounds, Totem Dreamcatchers mate very well with the Arros.
Thanks for the replies. After much reading here, as well as listening to some speakers at retail shops, I pulled the trigger on a set of almost new Monitor Audio 9i listed here on Agon. This was after reading 3 or 4 professional reviews, as well as scores of individual reviews on Audio Review, ecoustics, etc.

The common themes were that the Monitors were equally good for both music and HT, which was one of my primary goals. They also were lauded for having excellent clarity, dynamics, imaging, and soundstage. Quality bass for their size was another commonly cited feature. I like that the bass drivers are a bit larger than many other sub $1000 models I found available used. The reason that appeals to me is that when I was auditioning speakers at shops, it seemed all the ones I heard with 5.5" woofers were muddy and lacked impact in the bass/mid bass, including Vienna and B&W.

Time will tell, but even if they disappoint, I haven't spend a ton on them, and can sell them and try something else.
OK, so I've had the Monitor Audio Silver 9i for three months now, driving them with my Yamaha RX-V1800 receiver. For the first couple months, I was largely underwhelmed. They just did not seem to have much in the way of dynamics or bass.

It now seems the problem had to do with speaker cabling. I initially used the bi-amp feature of my receiver and used some Morrow SP-2 for the HF terminals and some stranded Monster cable for the LF terminals. As I said above, I just was not impressed with the lack of dynamics and clarity.

Well, as an experiment, I dug out of a closet an old set of Goertz MI-2 Veracity cables. Now, I had used these years ago in another system, but don't remember them being particularly better than other cables I tried at that time.

So, I have no explanation, but there is a huge difference. After installing the speaker terminal jumpers, I connected the MI-2 cables, and disabled the bi-amp feature of the receiver. Apparently, either the Monitors do not like bi-wiring, or the Goertz are just the ticket for these speakers. Not only do I now have much greater and more defined bass, but transient attacks happen, RIGHT NOW. Vocals on music and dialog on movies are the best I've had. At this point, I am finally really enjoying these Monitor 9i, and would recommend them strongly.