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Looking to upgrade floorstander speakers.

Hi,
I'm looking to upgrade my current speakers which are the Ascend Acoustic Towers with Raal tweeter upgrade ($2800.). Previous speakers were Dynaudio Focus 260. I use one sub and feel it's needed for both speakers. I thought perhaps a pair of speakers in the $7500 to $10000 would suffice.The Ascends are nice but I want to get to the next level. I want the sound to be somewhere in between live, detailed sounding and dark, warm sounding. Also, I must guard against too much boom with a larger woofer. My pre/power is the Conrad-Johnson ET5/LP70S combo. The power amp is an all tube design at 70w into 8 ohms. My room is relatively small at 13' deep x 18.5' wide. I am only able to have the speakers away from back walls no more than 2 feet. Side wall distance is fine. Speakers are 9 ft. apart with sitting distance around 9 ft. as well. I have some Roomtunes spead thruout the room located between ceiling and back/side walls. There are some pictures on walls for extra damping. The walls in general are fairly bare and I know there are some reflections affecting the sound. I do not have room to install panels, bass traps, etc. I'm pretty much stuck with what I have because of the space. I'm not picky about dynamic or electrostats, open baffle, etc. However, I've been using dynamic for quite some time. I don't get to audition other speakers at home so unfortunately I will have to buy the speaker before hearing it. I have auditioned some speakers at a local hifi store but their acoustics are much different than mine. 
I have considered Spendor D7/D9, Harbeth Super HL5, Martin Logan, Magnepan and others. Now lets have a discussion! Thanks.
routeman21
jdal
179 posts
 
My suggestion would be to demo Bache Audio’s Tribeca-002 with the Elton Symphony II woofers.  I have had many speakers in the past and still have Quad ESL 57s rebuilt by Quadsunlimited and Audio Physic Tempo Plus speakers. I have demoed Harbeth M30.2’s and SHL-5’s, Triangle, and considered moving up the Audio Physic line.
That said, the Bache speakers are built around a modified  wide band driver and augmented by a super tweeter and two 8” woofers. The sound is very coherent, open and holographic. Whereas the Tempos has superb pinpoint imaging, it’s also a little flat sounding. The Quads have a beautiful midrange but that’s about it. The Tribeca’s have a beautiful midrange, but also an extended top end and tight articulate bass. They are wonderful with all types of music whether it’s female vocals, hard rock, a Mahler symphony or ambient music. 
jdal
179 posts
 
I should add that I’m using 50 watt tube amps in a 13’x 22’ room. 
routeman21 OP
110 posts
 
jdal,
How far off the back wall do you have Tribeca's positioned?
jdal
179 posts
 
I started with a similar position that I had used with the Tempos, which was 3’ from the front wall, 2’ from the side walls and toed in. Where I have them now, which sounds better to me, is 2’ from the front wall, 30 inches from the side walls, and they fire straight into the room. Placement was a bit tricky in the sense that they sound really good in different positions. I think this is why Bache gets positive remarks about his rooms at shows. OTOH, the Tempos only sound good in one position. Get it wrong, and they don’t sound right. If you read any show reports about the new Audio Physic Midex  speaker, they were going around with a cut out static display. I guess they didn’t want to take any chances.
routeman21 OP
110 posts
 
jdal,
Do you use the Tribeca's with a sub(s)? Bass not boomy with the 2 eight inchers?
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