What would you do??

I had a similar problem recently in that my Thiel 3.5s needed a new midrange. The repair process proved to be more difficult than at first anticipated. Nothing major but the new midrange I got was damaged during the replacement process. I will not bore you with the details. I bought Paradigm Reference Studio 100 v2 against the recommendations of a few retailers who told me that after having owned Thiels I would find Paradigm or PSBs a let-down. Well, I am pleased to say that speaker manufacturers have (not to be too general, Paradigm at least) have made significant improvements in the last ten years. My present speakers and the former ones sound different, no doubt. But at this price level, I am very pleased with my choice and feel these boxes have no right sounding that good. Perfection, no. Midrange- natural, very nice; bass- fast, taut, maybe a little less deep than the equalized Thiels but surprising when the program requires bass; tweeter- have heard better, at more than six times the price though (Dynaudio Contour 3.3s and the more expensive ones with Esotar tweeters at 8X the price, go figure). My point is that some companies now offer a very attractive performance/price ratio. The main problem with Paradigms, as I am sure with other makes, is their lack of snob appeal. I would never get rid of my cat, although it appears to be more well mannered than yours. I take no credit for that, nature provides. It's not quite clear to me what you mean by all the drivers, (your cat must have had a field day!) and I doubt they are all $200 a piece. If you can do it with exact replacements at less than $1000. CDN, and you are not really in need of something new to make your day, I would go for the repairs. By the way, being a Canadian audiophile these days is rather hellish if you look beyond our borders. If you go for Canadian equipment though the bang for the buck (Canadian Peso???) ratio is much improved. By manufacturers who are not sullied by their mid-fi offerings, you could look at Totem (I just find they look too weird with their metal cone doo-ichy-poos (spelling???) on the cabinets; what are those things anyway?) And no, for the record, I am not nor have I ever been associated with Paradigm or any other speaker manufacturer, any of their respective directors, officers, employees, agents,representatives or any wives or girl friends of any of the foregoing. Regards.

Dekay, They leak on the stands? Our good friend Maurice Richard (aka Mo and Momo) followed my wife home one day. We fed it what we had on hand that a cat would possibly consider as food. The very next morning, a Saturday, he showed up at our patio door looking like a slow heavyweight boxer after twelve rounds with a fast one. We tended to him that day as best we could and, come the next morning his eye was still shut tight and his face swollen. Taking out the yellow pages, we found a vet with weekend emergency service. After this, Momo adopted us. Well I'll spare you the details, $350. later the abscess was removed. Not to be undone my wife decided to have the ultimate insult to a male cat performed at the same time. A little later on, despite my less than strenuous objections (I could see some furniture, sound system saving aspect after all) she had the poor Momo declawed front and back. After a very slow recovery, his paws are now fine. Declawing is not a trivial matter. Well, and this might be the real point of this blurb, I think Momo is actually a dat. He comes when I call him (unless he is totally stuffed at the time, granting him some immunity from my calls), he walks by our side when we take a walk, wants to follow my wife to work every morning, and, I think this is the clincher, he likes short rides in the car or the occasional long snooze in the car when parked in the driveway, he just jumps in when the door is opened. He likes to sleep on the morning paper when we are reading it, and sleeps on the papers littering my desk for hours while I am working and listens to the music playing, his ears sometimes moving to catch some less than desirable feature of the tweeters, no doubt. It would be great to have those cute triangular ears to be able to move them, almost radar-like, to pick up on the artefacts of our systems, no? . And oh yes, he always asks for the door when in need and has never touched any of the speakers, floor standing or not (and that's three pairs in the house). Tell me is this a cat or a dat?