$10,000 loudspeakers

Lets look at all the available loudspeakers NEW and USED, at and below $10k and figure out what are keepers at the price and what could be bettered for less money? Totally selfish thread since i'm looking for a $10k speaker investment and want to narrow down the list of contenders. New focal Kanta, Dyna C60, revel F228 be. Used Salon 2, sopra 2, 207/2, Sasha 3, etc. Obviously speakers respond to different electronics differently and rooms always present challenges, but lets see what you would spend $10k lottery money on a pair of speakers.

Focal-Kanta.jpg
 
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No they didn't - they were too tall, as I explained. The Amator walnut stands were adjustable and I could lower the speakers global height. As a matter of fact, I think that the Amator's come first and were already in place, the Gaurneri went in my office that was simultaneously my listening room. There they looked great. When something else come to replace them, I had to find a place for the Guarneri before a friend could get them.

BTW, depending on user taste the SF Guarneri and Amator's have a strong competitor in the B&W Silver Signature SS25 - for someone enjoying solid state sound they are terrific.

What 5 channel amp were you using to drive the GH’s
 
What 5 channel amp were you using to drive the GH’s

The more powerful Thule AV amplifier - the whole system has a 2/5 channel switch that converts it in a bridged amplifier when listening to stereo.

But as far as I remember I mostly used the GH with a conrad johnson MV125 - great amplifier and a Jadis Defy7.
 
Nice to see Quad mentioned so often here in this thread. Have had an ESL 63 for half of the 90's and still think very, very fondly of it.

Incidentially, did anyone ever mention Neuman monitors in this forum? The midfield KH 420 falls exactly into the price range. A phantastic speaker which I'm currently highly interested in myself. Pretty utilitarian look admittedly.

Neumann Monitore.jpg
 
Along with some of the other experiences and preferences you have started to detail in other posts, adding some information about your room size, layout, and electronic/amplification preferences might help a lot to get you more insightful recommendations.

A room in my basement about 18'x26'x7' stud and drywall around the foundation with 5/8 drywall on the ceiling with 12"x12" acoustic tiles over that, carpet and decent padding on the floor. A pretty nice equipment rack with my favorite piece to date a Hegel H360 that sounds great and doesn't get hot when I crank it up. I'm going to hear the salon 2 again tomorrow in a different room with different gear so I expect different results because I have to say my salon 1 sounded more natural than my first listen to the salon2. I think i'm going to shlep my H360 to the dealer that has the contour 60's fairly soon to them together, and hopefully if that goes well A home demo.
Those tekton dbl impact look badass. I may be able to hear the sopra2 and can certainly get a demo of the kanta2.
 
Has anyone mentioned the new Focal Kanta No2?

I had a chance to hear them recently, and they were very impressive.

Priced right at $10 K.



preview_kanta-no2-white.jpg
 
heard the salon2 in a 'normal' sized room last night with ml gear and the difference was impressive. I'll be picking them up saturday and can only hope they sound almost as good in my room driven by Hegel gear.
 
Of the ones mentioned in this thread I would go with Sonus Faber, quads, Maggie's. Stay away from revel and focal

I would additionally add Heco, much cheaper and can be run on SETs and cheaper valve amps. Easy to place and play
 
A lot of really great leads here, but nor a lot of chances to listen to these products within a 2 hour drive radius and then we still have the room to deal with and component matching. I think my options are to buy used, listen at home then keep or resell and move on to the next on the list! A fun process, but all the speakers I try will be used with the same amp, a Hegel H360 and will be limited by it and my room and so far without taking time to component match we never get the best a speaker has to offer. I'll start with the salon2 and compare with the S1 and if there's no significant change then i'll know i've hit a wall with either my amp or ears.
 
At AXPONA 2017 I heard Salon 2's side by side with JBL 4367 at the Audio Solutions room. I thought the 4367's blew the Salon 2's straight out of the water, in the imaging dept. Which makes sense, if you watch the video on how the M2 project came about. 3D imaging was one of the main goals.

Audio Solutions of Indianapolis sold me there demo model for 10K, list is 15K. My previous speakers before upgrade were Magnepan 3.6's, so that should tell you how much I like great imaging.
 
Boenicke Audio W11 or wait until the Magico A3 are released (1st quarter 2018 acording to Magico) to give them a listen and then decide?
 
At AXPONA 2017 I heard Salon 2's side by side with JBL 4367 at the Audio Solutions room. I thought the 4367's blew the Salon 2's straight out of the water, in the imaging dept. Which makes sense, if you watch the video on how the M2 project came about. 3D imaging was one of the main goals.

Audio Solutions of Indianapolis sold me there demo model for 10K, list is 15K. My previous speakers before upgrade were Magnepan 3.6's, so that should tell you how much I like great imaging.

Imaging is half the fun right? otherwise we'd still be listening to mono recordings.I still enjoy the sound of the salon1, but I struggled to get decent imaging from them in my room so they're gone! For whatever reason tall slim towers do well in this room and the salon2 didn't disappoint. A used pair of Vienna acoustics 'The Music' if they ever came up locally would be fun to hear also.
 

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