Best stand mounted monitors


I need your help please as I'm replacing my floor standing KEF Ref. Series 104/2 speakers with stand mounted monitors and probably a subwoofer due to the wife-acceptance-factor. I'm looking for comments from people who have listened to and hopefully compared the following monitor speakers that I'm considering:
(1) REFERENCE 3A - MM Decapo i
(2) PROAC - Response One SC or Tablette Ref. 8 Signature
(3) VON SCHWEIKERT - VR-1
(4) REVEL - M20 or the new M22 due out Q1 '04
(5) ATC - SCM 10-2 or SCM 20-2 either active or passive.

Other things you need to consider before offering your advice:
--> I will be replacing a very old Sherwood receiver with a new tube preamp and either tube or SS amp. I'll get the speakers first and then match the amp to it.
--> my room is about 4,800 cubic ft (40*15*8) and is average "aliveness" so having a higher sensitive speaker (e.g. >89dB) is desirable as it'll will mean less power required. I listen mostly to jazz with some R&B and classical.
--> budget is around US$2K-$3K (new retail price)
--> Id like to buy a REL subwoofer to match (e.g. Stadium II or III)

Many thanks.
kevinzoe

Showing 1 response by gunbei

I own both ProAc Response 1SCs and Tablette 50 Signatures and use a powered sub.

Last year I took my ProAc Tab 50 Sigs over to Viggen's place to listen in his system. At the time he owned KEF 104/2s. The ProAcs have a warm musical nature but we found them to be much more revealing than the KEFs. We didn't run the Tab 50 Sigs with a sub, so that may be part of it, but we could definitely discern and upper midrange to treble emphasis ove the 104/2s.

If you go with ProAcs I would suggest tubes somewhere in your signal path.

Happy listening!