Floor standing speakers w/ Rotel RA1572?

[walpurgis]

Gererally, properly designed amplifiers and speakers should work together well enough regardless of make. It would be daft for a maker to offer items that are incompatible with other product brands.

There are some exceptions, speakers that are a demanding load and amplifiers that are finnicky about capacitive or unduly reactive loads, but these are not the norm.

[nonuffin]

The speakers I was going to suggest don't have a distributor in the US unfortunately. Just checked the Quadral website and the USA is notable by it's absence.

Huge shame, as they really are stunning performers which to me leave all the usual candidates like KEF and B&W et all, way behind.

I run a pair of Chromium Style 6s which are only suited to small to medium listening rooms, but the Style 8 works in bigger rooms.

[Exophile]

Geoff, point well taken. The same argument could be made for type of music to be played. From my admittedly limited-newbie experience, that is not the case. Accordingly, I at least entertain the possibility of better/worse matched amp-speaker combos.

The Quadras might have been interesting. Pricewise according to amazon.de they are just about within parameters, but shipping would be a rather expensive, and looks like fat chance to hear them across the pond. The folded tweeter looks quite like the Martin Logans.

[plastic penguin]

Gererally, properly designed amplifiers and speakers should work together well enough regardless of make. It would be daft for a maker to offer items that are incompatible with other product brands.

There are some exceptions, speakers that are a demanding load and amplifiers that are finnicky about capacitive or unduly reactive loads, but these are not the norm.

Totally concur. However, if it was that simple to match speakers with amps life would be a lot easier... save lugging boxes to demo rooms etc etc.

Truth is no matter how well engineered the amp and speaker is the sound is also influenced by room size, shape or acoustics. So IMHO it is a hi-fi 'yin and yang'.

[Jac Hawk]

With speakers the best advice is try them at home if you can, the listening room they have them set up in the shop will make a difference to the sound and if you’re looking at shelling out a couple of grand you want to be sure

[plastic penguin]

With speakers the best advice is try them at home if you can, the listening room they have them set up in the shop will make a difference to the sound and if you’re looking at shelling out a couple of grand you want to be sure

Indeed Jac. If, for some reason, you can't home dem then make sure the dealer has a returns policy...

[Lawrence001]

Thanks for the additional suggestions. I think for my 1.0 system, I will get something that I was able to listen to, as opposed to specs-sheet/reviews. Focal should be available, and the HF bias actually could work well with my preferences. We'll see about the others ...

Totem seems to be quite a bit pricier, so not in the running.
Dynaudio has exactly one in the price range.
Wharfedale has a bunch.
No idea whether they will be available for a listen. Things to keep in mind for down the road ...

The electrostatic speakers had an amazing 3D imaging (I think that is the term?) for singer-songwriter, so lots of mid-tones, but with electronica they sounded muffled, because they don't seem to be able to handle strong higher frequencies. So it is a limited-tricks-pony, but does very well with that trick. I am looking more for an all-round speaker. Should handle medieval polyphonics, Biber (baroque), The Ex (punkish), Sleater Kinney (garage), Austra (indie), and Mittageisen (electronica).

If I was building a 1.0 system I'd probably get a Quad 2 and a nice Wharfedale Airdale, Altec or Klipschorn running off an early Lenco with mono cartridge

Seriously though, I generally choose speakers that sound nice to my ears in the room I want to use them in, and then choose a clean amp that can drive them well to the volume levels I will play them at, not the other way round.

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[Exophile]

So went out to the high end showroom today. Listened to Parasound S2 bookshelf, Linn109 bookshelf, Linn 140 floor, B&W 605, 705, 805.

I will go with the B&W 705 on stands. Quite a bit cleaner and not as bass heavy than the the Parasound and Linn, and while the 805s beat the 705 by a little, I cannot justify the price difference of 2K vs. 6K. One of those diminishing return issues. I may get a deal on the floor model, so that helps as well if the deal is sufficiently good.

Thanks for everybody's input!

[plastic penguin]

So went out to the high end showroom today. Listened to Parasound S2 bookshelf, Linn109 bookshelf, Linn 140 floor, B&W 605, 705, 805.

I will go with the B&W 705 on stands. Quite a bit cleaner and not as bass heavy than the the Parasound and Linn, and while the 805s beat the 705 by a little, I cannot justify the price difference of 2K vs. 6K. One of those diminishing return issues. I may get a deal on the floor model, so that helps as well if the deal is sufficiently good.

Thanks for everybody's input!

Congrats on your choice.

Good thing about B&W is they are speaker specialists, whereas Parasound and Linn are more known, in the UK at least, for their amps and streamers.