Best small 2-way floorstander?

Dkuipers I find your comments enigmatic. My question to you is how can we hold credibility to your choice on the Kharma Ceramiques as being music when you purchased a pair of Merlin’s and are now invalidating that decision by calling them Hi-Fi? Furthermore which I find quite frustrating is a common observation, why make a proclamation that a product is this or that without any constructive criticisms as to what you hear? Your paragraph said nothing! It holds no value to anyone who has heard neither speaker. Why don’t you instead tell us specifically WHY you don’t like the Merlin’s now and WHY you like the Kharma and attempt to articulate their differences? Obviously there was a reason you purchased the Merlin’s in the first place unless maybe you are just an equipment junkie.

Coincident all the way.The Conquest is an excellent choice.The Kharma guy is a real idiot.Anybody second my opinion.See how the Idiots in TAS reviewed the speaker.It comes with a 5499.00 stand.I bet any money that a pair of Coincident Super Eclipse 5499.00 will whip that 65000.00 Kharama the nobs at TAS are raving about.

Since I started this thread, I guess I'll try moderate the discussion a bit at this point. Tubegroover, I understand your frustration, but cut Dkuipers a little slack. Not everyone's an audio journalist. It's easier to tell the world which speaker you like but much harder to describe exactly why, and to put adjectives to paper (er.. screen). That's why some lucky guys get paid to listen to audio gear. I think Dkuipers is trying to say that he feels the Kharmas are more musically satisfying than the Merlins. Maybe he auditioned them after he bought the Merlins. My point is that everyone is entitled to an opinion, although not everyone may necessarily agree with it, and the opinion could in fact, be a very poor one. However, I do think that anyone who would simultaneously upgrade two systems with new speakers have got have some addiction to gear. Thanks for your opinion, Tml2, but unless you've actually auditioned the $65k Kharmas (or any Kharma speaker) and found it to be inferior to the Coincident, please try to refrain from any unsubstantiated attacks on Kharma. Heck, if I owned a $65k speaker (that weighs 600lbs!!!), I think $5.5k (less than 10% of the speaker) for beefy enough stands to put it on is not that outrageous. Geez, did I just say that $70k for a pair of speakers and stands is reasonable??? Well my name is not William Gates III, so I guess it's not! :-) Thank you all for keeping this discussion constructive.

A comment about "Hi-Fi" versus music. I just want to say one thing, Yes the Merlin's do ultimately sound like Hi-Fi that is to say you almost always know you are listening to an audio system instead of the real thing. I have only heard a few systems that ALMOST made me believe for a magical moment or two that I really was listening to live music. The Merlin's are included in that short list IN MY ROOM! All the talk about Hi-Fi versus music is a bunch of BUNK. Ultimately all we are really talking about is Hi-Fi systems and trying to approximate the real thing, at least that is my goal. If you don't believe it maybe you need to hear more live music and experience the obvious differences. Real music and Hi-Fi ARE TWO DIFFERENT EXPERIENCES. I really get on the High Horse when I see that phrase, which has become almost a buzz Mantra Hi-FI versus music, Hi-FI versus music, Hi-FI versus music. Maybe if you say it enough you will believe it. I say go hear some real music. My final 2 cents on this thread!

Sdcampbell, i have 3 mini monitors to recommend to you. The Reference 3A mini monitor. This speaker uses a 8 inch carbon fiber woofer and a silk tweeter. There is no crossover in the speaker. This speaker sounds so articulate. Here's a great pic of the Reference 3A http://shows.soundstagelive.com/shows/ces2000/product_13.shtmlspeakers.