The speakers are 25 years old, based on a design by Oracle Audio Technologies, but actually homemade with phillips drivers. I haven't purchased them yet, but I was planning to do so. I guess now would be a good time to change my mind
lansing.craigslist.org/ele/1276652340.html
Still, what I have right now are two KLH speakers with 10" woofers and a tweeter. They sound terrible, but perhaps that is because they are up on the loft. I figured that for $50 the oracle design speakers would work better... or at least would have some midrange?
I can look into the bookshelf monitor speakers. I think $200 I could spend, but not $500. For that reason maybe powered monitors would be better?
In the meantime I will try putting my existing speakers in the corners, instead of on the loft, and report on how that sounds.
Sorry to make this question about the speaker types; I know the forum's theme is actually about placement.