Best New or Used Speakers


Willing to spend between 1000-2000 new or used. Former magnepan owner, but looking for more room friendly less finnicky speaker to place with nice sweet spot. Perhaps even a more forgiving top end and better bass. Use SS high power equip and love all music venues. Love complex orchestral to Creed... med room that can be a bit bright and difficult... but I dont want the room rule out a choice for a great speaker in my price range. Can a maggie owner find true happiness outside of a ribbon ?? Thoughts? Recommendations?
lightfla
I love Maggies and I'm a current owner.The Eminent Technology LFT-VIIIa hybrid speakers are worth looking at.I've spent hours listening to these speakers.
They are well made and with a high power SS amplifier they really open up.I hooked my Carver ZR1600 800 wpc amplifier to these speakers. They will truly light up the room with authority, when feed enough power.They are more dynamic than the maggies but still give you that uncoloured midrange.The pictures on the site don't do the speakers justice. The LFTs look much better in person. They come with a 3 position adjustment for the tweeter.This gives you the option to adjust the tweeter to your needs.They play all sorts of music very well.The pair I listen too at a friend's home are totally non fatiguing.He unloaded a pair of $6500 box speakers after turning these on. These are true sleepers in the audiophile world. I have no affiliation with the company.They've been around more than 20 yrs but are still unknown to a lot of audiophiles.Bruce Thigpen(designer and owner) is a great guy and will sometimes answer the phone when you call the company.His ribbon-driver patents have been licensed for manufacturing by Level 9 Sound Designs, in Canada. That company supplies transducers for Monsoon speakers, as well as modified ribbons to VMPS audio.

Good Luck!
Biro L/1 is the best speaker on the market for the money. Sixteen hundred dollars new for the pair. Anything else is a waste of your time and money, I have done side by sides with all the B&W line and the Biro's are better sounding, I am not alone about this ; listening tests were done with several peaple in several listening rooms and we all agreed. Any mass marketed and mass produced product is inferior to the products that are produced and tested as they are ordered (Biro's). I have brought my pair to several salons and every time the Biro's sound better than anything up to 5 times the money. The sales peaple were all to happy to see me go so they could continue to take customer's money when selling the overpriced mass marketed junk that is forced on them.
In the used arena, I'd recommend Thiel CS3.6's. Great speakers for the money. New, at the bottom end of that price range, the NHT ST-4's are outstanding. Without knowing the price, I would have pegged them for going at more than double the asking price ($1,000). I also like Totem's floorstanders in that price range. A long time Maggie fan friend of mine just bought a pair of Totem Arros (NHT ST-4's were actually his first choice, narrowly, but wife wanted something smaller), and we were amazed by their soundstage and imaging. FWIW, we both felt that the NHTs and Totems sounded much better than similarly priced Maggies, although I should note that all of our listening was done with SS receivers/integrateds.

Tom.
I second the Aerial 10T's .I do have them in my listening room.Paired with Rogue tube monoblocks.Highly recommended,but you will need to go way over the 2000$ range.Good luck and happy listening.
I'm a tad biased, if you can step up a few more dollars....

Take a look at used Aerial 10t's......a great bargain that works well with solid state or.........

Genesis V or 500. Woofer amp included, GREAT soundstaging will work with solid state though tube amp would be better.

For just a little more $$$$ a LOT will open up for you.

Hopefully helpful, if not please forgive this music lover/devil's advocate!

Best,

Paul :-)