I found dealers in my area who sell: KEF, PSB, Deftech, Energy, Paradigm, B&W, Klipsch and Martin Logan.
So I will take the next few weeks to go out and enjoy myself listening to some tower speakers. It should be fun. I will bring my zune and a few CD's.
some tips to listening to speakers;
What I would do is to take a pad of paper with you, write down the make and
model of each speaker you audition and what you liked and disliked about the
speakers you were auditioning. Was the bass tight and deep or was it boomy and loose sounding? Were the mids life like or were they hollow or just too pronounced? Was the treble irritating and harsh or were they dark and not revealing or were they smooth that made you want to listen for more? How was the imaging?
Bring music with you that you are very familiar with and know quite well. I would go to speciality stores first and start auditioning speakers. The specality stores are better setup acousticaly then the big box stores which will make auditioning a little easier. It willgive you an idea of what you like in a speaker.
Keep track of what amp or receiver is powering the speakers you're auditioning. Try to get a receiver/amp that closest resembles what you have or want to get. It just reduces another variable when audtioning speakers.
One thing to keep note off. When auditioning speakers, make sure the volume
levels are matched between the diiferent speaker pairs because the louder
speaker pair will always sound better. Listen to levels that you think you
would listen to most of the time because thats how you are going to be using
them most of the time. Blasting is fun too but only do it if you think you'll
listen to them at loud volume levels once in a while.
