Best speakers for 2500....thump included

Okay, I couldn't resist responding to Rayhall. I actually heard comments like his before. They came from the local Thiel Dealer when I told him I was considering buying the Hales Rev3. He seemed irritated as if he had lost customers to Hales before. The funny thing about it is he is now a Hales Dealer. Couldn't beat them so he joined up. Rayhall are you a Vandersteen Dealer? Kidding aside, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I will agree with Rayhall that Vandersteen is worth an audition and another great value(3A is in the price limit). Man that 30Hz note the Hales "pretends" to play "feels" good. Happy listening....LR

Hi Laker, I am not a Vandersteen dealer, but I did audition it and the Hales in pursuit of speakers in this price range. If you A/B both with the right music, which is hard to find, you will hear the difference in the low end. As I said earlier, the Hales is a good speaker particularly when you consider its rock bottom price, but it certainly doesn't deliver close to an ultimate bottom end, nor are the upper mids as smooth as one would like. If you should decide to audition, take along the CD I recommended and be sure to listen with a high current solid state amp like Pass, Krell, Levinson, Plinius etc. After auditioning both speakers, then tell me that that 30hz note on the Hales "feels" good!

Shabbadoo: From what I've read your Perraux has plenty to drive speakers. A different angle here, you can get new Gold (drop me an e-mail if interested)i's at a very good price and you could used the saved cash in improvements such as a dedicated line and not a bad idea an alternative power cord for your Perraux that might improve your bass response more (noted that you really like this). Hey and maybe kick it up a notch on speaker cables. Regards

Having listened to the Hales for several hundreds hours, after running the various warble tones, the MATT test, etc. in my living room with them, I have to disagree with Rayhall. The Hales Revelation Three is more than capable of reaching 30hz (and below). He's right about that freq rattling windows (gotta get around to fixing that someday...). It's possible that he's also right about the midrange edginess, but up until now I've attributed it to other factors (of which I have many excuses from which to draw). It is slight (to me) and only shows up on certain material. But, hey, that's just my experience. After auditioning the Vandersteens and the Hales extensively I have to say picking one over the other is a tough choice.