Hey all,
Hope everyone has been doing well during this past less than delightful year.
Bring cooped up had its benefits for various hobbies though I suppose, such as audio listening for pleasure and not just background noise. I spend a lot of time at my desk on my PC workstation and generally like to have music playing while I read or write or do various work.
I think I want to get some new bookshelf speakers, strictly for music. I currently really enjoy my Polk Monitor 30's & 40's in near field on an Emotiva A-100 Mini-X 50 watt amp signal from my Maverick Audio TubeMagic D2 (tube pre-amp output). I don't need new bookshelves. I realize these are entry. But they're checking most of the boxes for me, so I've just not bothered to climb into something more costly over the years and I've had them for about 10 years now. But, I'm always "window shopping" like probably everyone here, curious how something might sound, be better, or whatever we get metaphysical about.
The problem is, I like too many things and it's probably mood based. Sometimes I want a clinical experience; I want to hear the most minute flaw in the recording or detail (such as inhalation before the next words, toe tapping with an instrument, the reverb of the hammers in the pinao, etc). Sometimes I just really enjoy the non-perfect extra sound that comes with the audio from a good recording that gives it a more human feel and is less of a perfect synthetic representation. And then to go to the other pole, sometimes I just want a syrupy gooey soupy warm experience without hearing edgy treble and everything just sounds casually good. It's hard to get that in one pair of speakers, without equalization (which I'm fine with doing!). I usually do not use a subwoofer when I'm listening to most music, so I think I would prefer a pair of bookshelves that are pretty competent for most music without a sub. This is near field listening in my office for context.
Things I'm listening to a lot lately: Queen & Journey's greatest hits, The Cranberries (and her side projects), Donald Fagen, Louise Rogers, Sonata Artica, TimeCop 1983... I know, it's all over the place. Everything is mood based right?
So I'm curious, based on that, does anyone have any recommendations either way? Reading reviews, some are so clinical that it's just measurements and that doesn't really represent the above perfectly. And then there are totally subjective reviews where it's just basically they like it or they don't and compare to things you may not have listened to (which is almost everyone). So it's hard to really nail something down. I guess that's half the fun?
I'm thinking $500 for the pair, give or take.
Things I've been window shopping from reading and from how they look (because that matters too!):
Canton 502's or 526's
KEF Q350's
ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2's or Reference DBR62's
Klipsch RP-160M's or RP-500M's or RP-600M's
PSB Alpha P5's
Monitor Audio Bronze 50's or 100's
Polk Signature S20's
Philharmonic AA+'s
Chane A1.5's
In general, I prefer the look of warm darker woods, like Walnut finishes.
Of course, I cannot audition all these. Sadly.
If I had to just gamble it right now, I'm weirdly drawn to the idea of the Monitor Audio 100's. But I have zero basis for it.
I really should just get off the internet, and listen to what I have. Sigh.
Very best,
