Speaker upgrade for classical music

I've never liked Polk Audio loudspeakers.  Big cabinets stuffed to the gills with cheap drivers and sold for cheap.   They look good, but...

Your very best value is in a good DIY loudspeaker project, or possibly finding a well-made DIY set used.  Don't turn your nose up at DIY.   Many of the designs are done by the best audio engineers on the planet and are just as good as the best commercial designs.  Within your $8k budget, you could easily put together the Linkwitz LX521 system and never want another speaker again for the rest of your life.  Will stand up against the top line $100k MBL system.  

The LX521, properly done, has no need for sub-woofers.  This is a project you could readily afford.  They do come up on the used market from time to time, but they're so good that few have a need to part with them.   The primary drawback with the LX521 is that it uses an active crossover and multiple power amps, so it's a considerably more complex project, but many have built them and you WILL be the envy of every audiophile visitor.

Another DIY project is the SEAS Thor.  Total materials cost will run you about $2500.  If you don't want to build it, Madisound partners with a cabinet maker that will make it up for you and ship it to you.  Delivered will probably run you about $3500.

The Thor was designed by Joe D'Appolito, one of the best known loudspeaker designers on the planet.  This is not some cheap throw together.   This is true audiophile hi-end.  This design is very comparable to the Joseph Audio Perspective 2 Graphene, which retails at about $13,000.  Both designs use the same tweeter and have transmission line cabinets.  The Thor uses a slightly larger bass driver.

@ssmaudio   The Linkwitz LX521 is intended for stereo listening.   A friend originally built his with the intention to have it sit on either side of his large screen TV set, but it seemed to me that that large flat panel interfered with his imaging.   When I heard the LX521 at the home of Siegfried Linkwitz, he was operating it strictly for 2 channel audio.   I run his older design, the Orion, and use it strictly as a 2 channel system and have my TV elsewhere in the house with a simple sound bar.

What's interesting is that the LX521 actually costs about $1000 less than the older Orion design and is more refined.  As with most engineering, design involves incremental improvements and the LX521 is a winner.

There is an on-line users group for all of the Linkwitz projects, with one sub-group dedicated to the LX521.   There is no fee to register.

I've always felt that the hardest part of building any loudspeaker was making them look good.  The LX521 will never be seen as a beautiful loudspeaker, but with some care, can be make to look acceptable.   If you haven't seen it already, there is an LX521 photo page at the Linkwitz site which will give you some ideas on what you might want to do in dealing with their appearance.  Some guys get into exotic veneers and some simply paint them.  One guy I know did a DIY project (not the LX521) and took his enclosures to an auto body paint shop, where they did a very nice paint job.  Not cheap, but it looked pretty good.  Naturally a pro paint shop could do anything you like, so that's an option most don't consider.

If I were building this project, I'd go with the miniDSP 4x10 HD DSP crossover.   Madisound includes the configuration file for the LX521.   And if you want to go even deeper into the technology, miniDSP has a calibration mike they sell for less than $100 and you can tweak the system response for your listening space.

Done properly the LX521 will result in something that nobody else will surpass, at any price.   Though Siegfried has passed away, his wife still hosts visitors to hear he LX521 at their home in Corte Madera, California.  The user group website does have a discussion thread devoted to people wanting to hear the LX521, but I don't know how active it is.

If you want to go for the amplifier spec of 8 channels at 60 wpc, the B&K AV1260 is a MOSFET amp that covers it.   12 channels at 60 wpc.  That's what I use.  I bought mine used at $500 13 years ago and it's been flawless.  There's one on EBay right now at all of $360.

One of the great blessings of multi-amplification is that it greatly simplifies the impedance load that an amp has to deal with.  No passive crossover.  All it has to do is deal with the single driver itself.  Good luck!