Speaker Advice Please...

Thanks for the advice.  Guess best thing I can do is wait till I know what the capability of the new audiolab amp is.  In the short term grabbed a Denon CEOL piccolo and a pair of Dali Zensor 1's as I can use them upstairs when I get sorted with amp and speakers for the PC.

Thanks again 

Have changed a few criteria.  

Got an offer I couldn't refuse for the amplification so am now running the M-Dac into a pair of Audiolab 8200MB single channel power amps.

Have given up on wall mounting the speakers.

Am now trying to narrow down a list to audition at home:

At the upper end of my budget have some offers of good prices on:

B&W PM1, PMC Twenty 21 & 22 & Monitor Audio GX100.

In the more easily affordable part of my budget:

Keff LS50, Monitor Audio GX50, Linn 109, B&W CM5

At the lower end of my budget:

Tannoy Rev DC6 and B&W CM1.

Any advice on nararowing down the list woud be appreciated.  Still limited by only having around 200mm space from the rear of the speaker to the wall.

Thanks in advance.

I would take out the CM1s think they will have too much bass if near a wall. LS50s are good but need some driving so not so good for low volumes.

What sort of music do you play? 

Haha, they start at £1,250 actually.

FrankHarveyHiFi wrote:

Exshopguy wrote:

FrankHarveyHiFi wrote:

What, along with all the other recommendations? If it suits, it gets recommended. Not my fault they have a number of benefits that suit more people

 

But that was my point really, if anyone recommends an AVI product here they're attacked for it. KEF seems to be recommended with at least as much zealotry from certain quarters but this is deemed fine. Double standard I think.

...ATC,... ATC,

Forget about KEF, lets overanalyse the Freudian slip of you listing ATC twice

(J/K)

A fairly wide gamut: rock, pop, dance, classical, musicals etc so no real help there.  Thanks for the comments about the CM1's.

Cheers

You may want to add the Spendor SA1 to your list. If you don't want much bass then the Harbeth P3ESR are worth a look if you can hear them.

Have a listen to the Neat Petites too, they'd be my pick. The Linns are not bad either.

I agree that wall mounting is a mistake. One thing that I HIGHLY recommend to you, and anyone else who is essentially driving a hifi system from a desk, is getting some desktop stands. I got some from a little company called Item Audio which I found online. They took a little longer than they promised but in the end really delivered - mine are about 9 inches tall and are almost heavy enough to use as barbells. It's a section of an I-beam welded to two steel plates with four holes punched in each, then powder-coated black. You then put eight little rubber feet into the holes and you stick them on each side of the desk, toed in a little. They'll make them any size you want - mine are sized to fit a pair of PMC DB1is, and the bottom a little smaller to save desk space. WHAT a difference this makes - it elminates some of the reflections from the desk and gets the bass driver up in the air. I have tried the Scanspeak 15W's - which for their size are just bass monsters - on the stands and sitting in front of my computer was just sick - you would need huge speakers to have bass like that in the living room. Near-field listening is a wonderful thing - sort of its ówn little backward corner of hifi - but you have to get the speakers off the desk to experience it.

In the OP's room this might be better - when he's pushing up the volume for the rest of the little room, he'll do better that shoving them in corners or on the wall.

As for which speaker, it's overpriced IMO, but it's hard to ignore what a good fit the little Spendor would be in a setup like this. Maybe ProAc Studio 115. The PMCs do it well and the TL is a great compromise in a room like yours, where ported speakers might get boomy, but üou might find the Spendor bass to be lacking.

I also have to admit that David has got a point about KEF. They are on a roll, and you can get more speaker for your money, at your price level, from them than from the other companies I mentioned. 

If it were my money - and I if didn't already posses the terrible knowledge that comes from building my own speakers - I would probably be on eBay trolling for speakers that retail for double your budget, for your budget. It's somehow scarier doing it with speakers than amps, but you pay such a massive premium for new, and they aren't even broken in yet, right?

Hope this was helpful.