Big Stupid Warm Speakers


I'm getting ready for a speaker change. I've owned B&W 804 matrix speakers for about 12 years now. While I've enjoyed the refinement of them there's always been something missing.

Yes that's right, and that something might be BIG STUPID WOOFERS. Some of my favorite speakers ever were a pair of Infinity's I paid $300 for in 1979. They had 15 inch woofers, tweeters that were harsh and not the greatest, but these things roared like an angry lion even when no music was playing. When it was playing, about anything from Oingo Boingo to Mozart was a visceral experience.

Now with upper end speakers, you don't know there's bass until there's supposed to be, the tweeters are refined and realistic sounding, there's some wonderful imaging etc. But it's somehow too polite - I want to get back some of the warmth from the big woofer days. And no, using a sub isn't the same thing.

I remember being in a high end store about 10 years ago when a Polk Rep was there showing this huge new Polk speaker that was just incredible sounding. Big warm, realistic, detailed -awesome. I asked the store owner when he'd be getting them. He rolled his eyes and said, "Our customers are too discriminating for this type of speaker. The bottom end was way out of control."

So maybe I want out of control instead of polite. Can anyone put me in the direction of some BIG STUPID WARM SPEAKERS that still have some refined and high end attributes? The rest of my system is all Cary HT that retails for around $10K.

Cary Cinema 6 Preamp Processor
Cary Cinema 5 Multichannel amp (200 WPC)
Cary Cinema DVD 6 (incredible with CD's)

Even though the system is HT, the electronics do very well with music. And even the they're Cary components, they're solid state - but easy on the ears. I listen to Classical, Jazz, Electronic, Bluegrass, etc.
Oh yeah, and looking to spend under $3K/pair.

Has anyone else gone through this? Any speaker recommendations? Thanks.
larryb
Von Schweikert VR4s used. They will shake the nails out of the walls. You can pick them up for the mid teens, and it's a hassle to send them out to VSR to have them modified to VR5s, cost is $2500, but it's well worth it.

They do rock to jazz to classical - very well rounded.

tnkujry
I'd recommend Vandersteen, similar to Von Schweikert but even less "hifi". Even bigger, warmer sound, less precise - more musical.
There is verry little "high end" under 3K that will do what you are asking. NHT has the ST4's that put out lotsa bass. They are bi-ampable so you could simply add a big solid state amp for the woofers. Your Cary gear would calm some of the speaker's brightness. The speakers retail for 1,000, a good solid state amp will set you back less than 1K, and the NHT outboard crossover that is useful in regulating the bass is under 1K.
It would still sound better with a subwoofer like the Martin Logan Depth though.