Sonus Faber Maxima Amator without the fancy

OP     without the fancy leather, marble stand and walnut casings. ~~~ Want to make it sound like the band is basically in my room, would love some pointers

All speakers sound different. Wavetouch audio (me) Antero speaker sounds the most live and close to the original music. Antero video. 

Chris De Burgh - Lady In Red, Wavetouch audio live recording

The room in video is 13’5’w x 22’L x 8’h. The speaker pair is $3,500. Speaker is very easy to drive (92db sensitive). Amp in video is solid state amp (35watts).

Below is very low cost set up (Marantz int amp $200, Project phono-pre $50) in my large shop (32’w x 44’L x 12’h).

Well Temper record player turntable 

Below are videos of Sonus Fabre. I hear how SF sounds like from these videos. They all sound similar. 

MAVIS M90 drives SONUS FABER Maxima Amator

Melbourne Hifi Show 2022 Sonus Faber Maxima Amator

Sonus Faber - Maxima Amator

Sonus Faber Maxima Amator - AMR 777

Alex/Wavetouch audio

My ProAc recommendation above was based on your liking the SFs but wanting less bling. Based on the discussion on placement you might consider large Ohm Omni speakers. They are very placement friendly. The presentation is the music is all around us rather than live on stage.

https://ohmspeaker.com/

These will perform better for far less:

https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/2.5-way-speaker-kits/satori-rinjani-textreme-2.5-way-speaker-kit-pair-with-cabinets/

I will seek these out to try this weekend if I can find them in stores around Denver.  I greatly appreciate the feedback!

My 2 cents: if at all possible, spend some time thinking hard about your speaker placement options, e.g., how far from the rear wall can you get them if switched them to the short wall ? How far from the long wall? Distance apart, distance to listening position, etc., and then take that info with you as you go to dealers to listen.  Share those measurements with the dealers. Good ones will steer you away from speakers that will not perform their best in your space.  As was alluded to above, for example, speakers with rear bass ports generally don't sound great if there are close to the rear wall. But even those with down facing ports, like my Revel F226Bes in my 2d system, needed more space than i was originally giving them.

With the help of brother @soix , i recently discovered how much improvement in sound experience even 9” to a foot can make. 

This thread might also be of interest to you : https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/speaker-placement-frequent-placement-changes