Speaker recommendtion £1500 max

[IceBoy]

Hi All,

I need recommendation on floor or stand mount speakers for my Music/Av room.

I'm running a combination of Arcam and Denon amps in my AV cupboard (4 in total). I have Monitor Audio Radius 390 subs around the home (4x) and monitor audio ceiling speakers throughout the house.

This particular room has the Monitor audio ceiling speakers - rear mounted and one of the subs. I will probably go for the Monitor audio/kef centre speaker but not sure about what to use for the front L/R.

The AV will be used with both music and movies.

Any help much appreciated....I have been looking at Ebay for some used bargains, but again, don't know what to look out for....a bonus would be that they look interesting...if that is even possible?

IceBoy

[Dr Z]

MA Silver 300
KEF R500
Tannoy XT8F

What's your ideal sound?

[legzr1]

Go used or ex-dem and you’re into the realms of KEF Reference or R900s.

[B17NNS]

3 x KEF LS50 (left, right and centre)

[SouthHamsGaz]

Focal Chorus 726 £1199 from Richer Sounds.
Focal Aria 926. £1449 on ebay.
Tannoy XT 8F £1399 ebay.

Personally I would go used if you aren't in any rush. I picked up my Monitor Audio PL200s for £1600.

Edited by SouthHamsGaz on Thursday 15th February 19:46

[Username...]

I have the Focal Chorus 807 stand-mount speaker in a 5.1 configuration & absolutely love the sound. I listened to B&W CM5, Dali Zensor and others and the Focal speakers were far superior. Clarity, sound-stage and detail is brilliant.

I'd recommend you check out the Focal Electra 1008 Be, which are supposed to be an outstanding speaker. I haven't listened to them, but they will likely be my upgrade when it comes to it. Ebay have a new pair for £2k (£3k RRP) if you can stretch your budget. These are pretty rare, but you might be able to find a used pair for less.

If that's too much, the 1007 Be predecessor is also brilliant. Otherwise check out the Chorus or newer Aria Range.

[tvrforever]

I'm thinking of a pair of Tannoy XT 8F floorstanding speakers - anybody with experience of them?

£1399 https://www.richersounds.com/hi-fi/floorstanding-s...
£1199 http://exceptional-av.co.uk/tannoy-revolution-xt-8...

[Hayek]

If you'd like some Tannoys offer this guy £1500 (or a little more if you can). I've not heard them but the classic large Tannoy dual concentric is very well regarded.



https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tannoy-Prestige-Stirlin...

[Dr Z]

tvrforever said:

I'm thinking of a pair of Tannoy XT 8F floorstanding speakers - anybody with experience of them?

£1399 https://www.richersounds.com/hi-fi/floorstanding-s...
£1199 http://exceptional-av.co.uk/tannoy-revolution-xt-8...

I have its smaller sibling (XT 6F) and I've been pretty happy with it. The sound is slightly on the warm side in the mids. Sounds great listening to Jazz, Rock, Classical. Don't like shouty tweeters, and this one is very satisfying for me, without sacrificing detail.

If I had the space, I'd probably have tried to stretch to the XT8F.

[Patrick1964]

You really need to be listening to speakers at hone with your kit before spending anything like that sort of money. Depending on what cabling you have I’d suggest possibly spending a portion of your budget (maybe 1/3) on cables.
You should do very well with £1500, I didn’t pay that much for my Wilson Benesch Arcs and I’ve yet to hear anything as good under £4000 new with my system (Innuos Zenith, Chord Hugo TT, Naim 250DR with Chord interconnects and Naim Super Lumina speaker cable)

[UpTheIron]

Patrick1964 said:

I’d suggest possibly spending a portion of your budget (maybe 1/3) on cables.

I thought the snake oil peddlers rule was 10%.

I've run various bits of my kit through all sorts of cable, from very cheap to very expensive and I remain unconvinced that spending much more than maybe a £few/metre is worth it.

I have some £75 1m RCA interconnects that are no improvement on £7.50 XLR interconnects - granted I'm not comparing apples with apples.

I've run £20/m fancy looking speaker cable and £1/metre stuff I've bought since is just as good.

For reference, this is involving components such as MF A1 FBP, 750K Superchargers, Cyrus Pre & Mono amps, top level Marantz AV kit, MQA DAC's and quality sources and speakers to match. One particular experience was a Quad 33/303 to large Tannoy speakers using some truly pathetically thin speaker cable.

My point is at this kind of price point I don't think it will be the biggest area for improvement. I'm not suggesting cables won't give a small incremental improvement but £500 out of a £1500 budget...?

[benz0]

Patrick1964 said:

Depending on what cabling you have I’d suggest possibly spending a portion of your budget (maybe 1/3) on cables.

Worst advice I've ever read anywhere. 500quid on cables for a speaker upgrade?!?!!

[legzr1]

benz0 said:

Worst advice I've ever read anywhere. 500quid on cables for a speaker upgrade?!?!!

I’m not so sure, have you visited NP&E recently?

My whole loom including 5M speaker cables and seven XLR interconnects cost less than 1% of my speakers. Maybe I’m doing it arse about face...

[Crackie]

legzr1 said:

benz0 said:

Worst advice I've ever read anywhere. 500quid on cables for a speaker upgrade?!?!!

I’m not so sure, have you visited NP&E recently?

My whole loom including 5M speaker cables and seven XLR interconnects cost less than 1% of my speakers. Maybe I’m doing it arse about face...

1%.....rather extravagant legzr1

[legzr1]

Less than - I’m really not a ‘believer’

Saying that, I’ve just pushed the boat out on a pair Klotz MC5000 to connect a £1500 DAC/Steamer to a £4K amp that doesn’t have balanced inputs.......£20 + £2 p&p. A little pricey but worth it

[anonymous-user]

I got a pair of Focal 936's ex-demo for £1600 and very impressed.

[Patrick1964]

Well I speak as someone who has heard the clear benefits of rather expensive speaker cable, so my viewpoint may skewed. My point is really that you should budget for something decent, rather than spending a great deal on speakers and relying on crap cable. A friend of mine has worked his way up over 15 years to a Naim system totalling anout £35k and is adamant that the biggest upgrade he has ever made was the cabling. Anyone who doubts the ability of good cable to lift a system dramatically is either deaf or just hasn’t had the opportunity to make a comparison.

[legzr1]

£34K of that spent on mana tables no doubt.



£1500 budget:

£1000 on speakers, £500 on cables.

Or

£1450 on speakers, £50 on cables that measure the same, pass current the same and sound the same but don’t come in pretty coloured jackets with some pretentious sales twaddle.

Which one to choose?

[Crackie]

Patrick1964 said:

Well I speak as someone who has heard the clear benefits of rather expensive speaker cable, so my viewpoint may skewed. My point is really that you should budget for something decent, rather than spending a great deal on speakers and relying on crap cable. A friend of mine has worked his way up over 15 years to a Naim system totalling anout £35k and is adamant that the biggest upgrade he has ever made was the cabling. Anyone who doubts the ability of good cable to lift a system dramatically is either deaf or just hasn’t had the opportunity to make a comparison.

Probably best not to have yet another debate about cables.......but

Confirmation bias and post purchase rationalisation are very hard at work with you aren't they? If you think that cables make a subjective difference and are worthwhile additions to your system, that is fine, you crack on. You're a happy punter and the shop that sold the cable to you is very happy indeed.

Regarding the statement in bold........If speaker cable is such a vital link in the chain then ask yourself this question; why do design & manufacturing teams at B&W, KEF, Celestion, Mission, TDL, Meridian, Wharfedale, Acoustic Energy care relatively little about which cable is used to connect their products to the driving amp; this is because they know that speaker cables' contribution to sound quality is negligible.

why do the speaker ( and amp ) makers, invariably, not make/distribute cables?

[B17NNS]

I thought this forum was a snake oil free zone