bookshelf's to match older rotel 30watt


Scored amp for my humble journey into 2 channel bliss. Its a 90's 30-35watt rotel, plan on using signal cables becuase of price and good reviews.For now my cdp will be an upconverting denon dvdplayer(cambridge 640v2 good upgrade?).Mainly listen to jazz,classical, acoustic guitar, dance, rock and of course the gypsy kings!Unfortunatly my budget right now is around 300 for speakers.was looking at used B&W dm 302 and 303. Obviously sensitivity will be an issue, any ideas?
glowplug

Showing 2 responses by knownothing

Glowplug, you should realize it takes a while to warm up! Take a breath and relax - remember 0 to 60 in, oh, well, something less than a day for a diesel, right?

Here's some ideas...

-the Usher idea is a great one.
-you cannot go wrong with the B&W 300 series, I have yet to hear ANY of their products that I have thought were losers.
-I really like the Energy C-100 and C-200's
More award winning Canadians
-Paradigm Atom v.5
-PSB Alpha B1
More English designed speakers to duke it out with the B&Ws (although the B&W 300 series may be the only English made of this bunch)
-Monitor Audio BR1 new, and BR2 and R90 used
-Cambridge Audio S30
-Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 or 9.2

I addition, here is a previous thread, and I'm sticking to my advice there as well, although these speakers are a bit pricier if purchased new:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1199418973&openusid&zzKnownothing&4&5#Knownothing

There are a lot of great speakers available in this price category. Turn the key on, surf the Internet, and when the plugs are warm - light it up!
I think it will be tough to score Dynaudios for this price point. As for the others you mention, they are all very good and do about the same thing - bring you well presented and musical sound for your investment with an emphasis on the midrange portion of the audio spectrum. Don't expect big bass from any of these, nor crystalline highs that will make you want to weep. Reviews of most can be found here:

http://search.ecoustics.com/Editorial/Reviews/Bookshelf-Speaker/Alpha-Name/All/

Given these are all very good, you may want to focus on availability and price used. Cleaneduphippy has some great advice about shopping Audiogon's For Sale pages.

And since you will be using a 30W amp, you may want to focus on the speaker's sensitivity:

PSB Alpha B1 = 89db, 4-6 ohms impedance
B&W DM302 = 91db, 8 ohms impedance !!!
Usher S-520 = 86db, 8 ohms impedance
Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 = 86db, 6ohms impedance

So the B&W and PSB are the most efficient, but the B&W has a higher impedance - so should be an easier load on the Rotel amp.

PS - I own a Cambridge Audio Azur 640C v2 and am very happy with it. You should check out others as well - with decent used players frequently available from NAD, Cambridge and others. See my review of the Cambridge 640C v1 and v2 compared with some others in this price category at AudioReview.com. I am a big believer in starting out with the best source you can afford. Your system can't reproduce musical information later on in the chain that isn't captured to start with, and there have been a lot of technological advances in DACs and their implementation that have made budget players in particular much better than they were.