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Best budget speakers for near-field/small space

Hi Ladies & Gents,

First time on Audiogon.

Coming from headphones, due to dorm constraints, I'm finally going to be able to get a speaker setup once I move into an apartment at the end of the year.

Sharing an apartment with a few mates, so I'll be setting up the speakers in my bedroom. The room is probably going to be pretty small (about 12 by 8 feet), and with my bed, wardrobe and all, optimal speaker positioning might be a problem.

Hence I'm thinking of going with a near-field setup, on my desk with my computer since that's where I do most of my listening. I could swap my chair and desk with a nice recliner as well, but its going to be near-field either way.

My budget for speakers and amps is pretty tight. Under 1000USD (please don't tease =) and the lower the better. I'm looking for the greatest bang for my buck what with being a student and all.

I listen almost exclusively to Jazz. Mostly 50's 60's bop, hard bop etc. Some acoustic singer-songwriter stuff, and indie rock as well, but only occasionally.

At the lowest end of the spectrum the Audioengine A5 looks interesting. Possibly paired with S8 subwoofer. Being active, I'd save on electronics and could add a DAC down the road, to pair with my Macbook Pro.

At the upper end of my budget, the Magnepan MMG looks very attractive especially with the great reviews on the web. Potential worries: read that they need a really beefy amp that might cost a bit, and more importantly, positioning. I don't believe these speakers were made with near-field listening in mind so that's a bit of a worry.

I've also heard many great things about the Linkwitz Pluto. And since its available as a DIY I could save some bucks (though I have no experience whatsoever, so its a bit daunting).

Other active/passive studio monitors seem to be decent choices as well. The KRK Rokit series, Dynaudio BM5a etc seem like viable alternatives, but I'm worried that they won't be as 'musical' as hi-fi speakers and might end up being cold and too revealing (might be a problem with badly mastered records, especially all those bright RVG remasters).

I have incredibly limited experience with speakers. More well-versed with headphones only. So I really need your help!

Many thanks in advance!
milesandcoltrane

Showing 4 responses by mapman

mapman's avatar
mapman
21,838 posts
 
First off, nice moniker!

Regarding speakers, Triangle Titus XS are perfect for nearfield and low to moderate volume listening in tight quarters. I've had mine for years and can't part with them.

I've owned Maggies as well and the little Triangles allowed me to part with them with a sound upgrade for less and few speaker placement issues.
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,838 posts
 
"Does the Triangle Titus XS really beat the Maggies where SQ is concerned? "

In my case they did for me. They have speed and transparency and bested my Maggies, which were middle 80's vintage mg1cs.

I've also heard mmgs recently at a local dealer running of some good tube amplification and I would not switch from my Triangles running of a 20 watt vintage Yamaha receiver based on what I heard.

Until a series of way more expensive upgrades to my main system over the last few years, teh Triangles driven off a 80 watt/ch tandberg tr2080 was my best sounding reference standard.

You may or may not elect to add a sub later in that they do not do much below 50hz or so, but what they do they do extremely well!
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,838 posts
 
One more good thing about the Triangles is they are 89db or so efficient which means they are easy to drive with most any amp. They are also pretty tube friendly even from what I have read and I would like to try them with a tube amp someday.

Maggies on the other hand generally require a fairly beefy and likely also correspondingly more expensive amp to sound their best.
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,838 posts
 
dual concentric drivers (a highly approximated point source) are a natural solution for nearfield listening I would think.

Doesn't KEf have some models that use this approach also? I've always thought this to be a very practical design for application in tight quarters.
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