Well, it really is the combination of speaker, everything upstream and the room size/setup. Too many variables, hence the 9,359 suggestions here.
For what it’s worth I just bought a pair of Elac Uni-Fi UB5’s for my brother-in-law along with a new Parasound A23 amp, a used Para P5 pre-amp and a new pair of Polk Audio PSW505 subs (the P5 has dual sub outs with variable crossover). As a system they work quite well. It took some time to dial it in but it sounds quite impressive even without coming room treatment. He has an older Sony Blu-ray player as a CD source. It will improve over time but it is orders of magnitude better sound than he has EVER had before! The small Elacs are a good place to start.
I have Tekton Design OB Sigma hybrid open baffle speakers, Hsu Research 10" subs driven by both a vintage Ad Com 555II and Parasound A23’s in bridged mode driving the passive subs. I believe Tekton Design is another good value place to start in speakers. Andrew Jones (Elac) and Eric Alexander (Tekton) are doing very nice design work!
For what it’s worth I just bought a pair of Elac Uni-Fi UB5’s for my brother-in-law along with a new Parasound A23 amp, a used Para P5 pre-amp and a new pair of Polk Audio PSW505 subs (the P5 has dual sub outs with variable crossover). As a system they work quite well. It took some time to dial it in but it sounds quite impressive even without coming room treatment. He has an older Sony Blu-ray player as a CD source. It will improve over time but it is orders of magnitude better sound than he has EVER had before! The small Elacs are a good place to start.
I have Tekton Design OB Sigma hybrid open baffle speakers, Hsu Research 10" subs driven by both a vintage Ad Com 555II and Parasound A23’s in bridged mode driving the passive subs. I believe Tekton Design is another good value place to start in speakers. Andrew Jones (Elac) and Eric Alexander (Tekton) are doing very nice design work!