Alternatives to B&W 805 D4

I know you said bookshelves but the Revel 226be floor standing speaker would be another option. It will take up less floor space than the Sopra 1 on stands and is cheaper. They sound a lot alike to me. The Sopra is what, $10,000 now with the price hikes?

The Sopra might have a touch more air or it could just be a hair more tipped up too. The Revel counters with being able to play stupid loud if your into loud. Sometimes loud is fun. But both these brands are much better than the B&W 805d3 (probably d4 too). Both to my ear and objectively based on the measurements.


After demoing the Kef reference 3,Wilson Audio Sabrina, Sonus Faber Olympica nova III, Klipsch Cornwall IV, 803d3,804d3, revel 328be among others I bought the Revel 228be.

Anyway listen for yourself in this comparison video linked below. I think you will find they have very similar house sounds. Back to back sound demo, same room, same song, same system of the Sopra 1 and 226be. If I listen to this demo with my eyes closed I have a hard time telling the speakers changed. 
https://youtu.be/Y7xJjesFGKk



Review with kippel measurements here. https://youtu.be/r1JjCVVgIdc


Detailed measurement breakdown here. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/revel-performabe-f226be-floorstanding-spe...

After more investigation, the Revel 226be are not available in my region, I would need to have the import without actually see or hear them, and the room I have (my office) is small. But they look good for sure.

A contender I'll add to my short list is the Dynaudio Heritage Special as one of the local dealer has a pair so I'll be able to compare them to 805 D4 and Elemental Fire V2. However, no luck to find a dealer to have the Sopra #1 on demo yet, and they are a bit over budget (11.5k CAD). If I can listen to them, I might be able to break the bank.

Thanks everyone for your advices and suggestions. 

And don't miss the next part of this journey, the best song to evaluate a system (it will be speakers in my case):
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/top-3-songs-to-evaluate-a-system

Cheers!

So it's done... I now own a pair of Focal Sopra No.1. I have them for 4 days and I am truly amazed. It was quite an upgrade from my no-named micro monitor.

I'm using (rather old, but still good) McIntotsh C712 + MC 7100. With a Bluesound Node and trying to figure out if I should replace my good old Spotify account for one that offest lossless/MQA , and if yes, which one. A topic for another post!

Thanks everyone for the hints and suggestions.

 

 

You haven’t heard the capabilities of your speaker with a node. Great for background music and whole home. But not up to snuff for the focal. This is just my opinion 

@wadia150 The node is next on my upgrade list. I ended up replacing the McIntosh with a Luxman L-509x and now the DAC is clearly the bottleneck.

Still... The sound quality never stop to amaze me and I can hardly believe it can be improved (but I know I'm wrong!). I have my eyes on a second hand Luxman DA-06 but still are the beginning of my exploring journey of DACs. Any suggestion that will pair well with the Focal/Lux is welcome.