Couple of things—@shadyj the principal speaker reviewer for this website infoed another member on a different string that there will a large audio show, AXPONA, in two weeks at Schaumburg, IL with many speaker manufacturers you can listen too.
Regarding “bright” speakers it has been suggested it may be intentional because they stand out more in comparisons in show rooms. But as you mentioned they lead to listening fatigue for those naive buyers later on.
Recommendations without “owners confirmation bias” can be gleaned from following the speaker reviews of
@shadyJ on this website. For instance in your price range well regarded speakers that tested well for your use could be the Polk R700 towers and the Polk L400 center. The L400 received high praise in its review and the R700 was speaker of the year in its price range.
In our in-depth review of Polk Audio's Reserve R700 tower speakers, we look at just how much of the performance of the stellar Legend series has trickled down to the more affordable Reserve series.
www.audioholics.com
The L200 are Polk's latest high-end bookshelf speaker, and the L400 is the Legend center speaker. Both boast many of the state-of-the-art advances. Check out our detailed review of both here.
www.audioholics.com
