best 5-20K speakers for high-end tube amp?

"everything from indian classical to spanish flamenco to andean flute music"

No slouch - not to hijack your thread, but any recommendations for these 3 would be appreciated. I'm on a "expanding my horizons" kick, and this is right up my listening desires.

Thanks

Avantgarde horns would do well within your budget, You won't get the good Acapellas for your budget. I have a pair of current spec AG Duos with valve amplification (Tron Meteor preamp www.tron-electric.com and GT Audio rebuilt Quad IIs). Hence I have significantly less power to play with than you. My listening room is 35 x 18 ft and I barely have to push the volume past about 10 o'clock before my wife say that's enough from another room/floor. You can get deafening levels even from a PX25 amp with 5W with Avantgardes. It's true that you need to set them up well, otherwise they can sound, well, crappy. that's true of many things in hi fi, esp turntables.

Avantgarde Duos have never sounded crappy in my experience no matter what set up you have. They are alive dynamic and electric. But they ultimately fail in delivering good quality bass or natural tonality that robs the music from a lot of its beauty.

I owned duo 2.2 was a nice loudspeaker but had its problems.I much perfer oris or azura systems you can build most anything one would want.

Sorry about responding late to my own thread. I thought this thread had ended a while ago! And I still haven't found my speaker, despite tons of auditioning over the last number of weeks.

I have heard the Avantgardes Unos several times now, but only with solid state electronics. Audiojoy, I agree with what you said about their harshness, lack of bass, and unnatural tonality. Did you listen to them with tubes? Would that make a big difference? I really wanted to like these speakers, as well as the Acapellas. I heard the High Violin and the LaCampaniles, both with SS, and also found them harsh and overly analytical. Other horn speakers I have listened to include Odeon, Tannoy, and TAD/Pioneer. I found the Tannoy Churchill and Pioneer horn speakers the most musical and integrated, but the Churchills lacked bass detail and the Pioneers lacked a degree of transparency across the board.

I seem to be bumping up against a problem of detail/tranparency/immediacy versus musicality/listenability/tone/integration.

My favorite speakers so far, price aside, are the Wilson Alexandrias and Eggleston Works Savoy. These are the only speakers which have really 'wowed' me and let me consistently forget about judging them due to enrapture by music during auditioning. With the right electronics, I've also liked Kharma speakers, though I think they noticeably lack detail (after my first audition of the Midi Exquisites I listened to Rockport Antares, which were far more accurate. during my second audition of 3.2 and 2.0, the dealer himself did a demonstration with european folk music showing how an entire stringed instrument was muffled by both Kharmas, and rendered in full detail by a pair of German Physiks speakers). I also really liked the sound of a vintage pair of Wharfedales driven by McIntosh tubes, but wasn't allowed an extensive audition.

Since all of these speakers are over US$20,000 new, I may either abandon my speaker search for now (until I audition more speakers, or find the above at a used price), or change my budget. The Savoy would also require me to change amps.

My ideal speaker would have:

1) immediacy and transparency of high-quality horns, or a custom-built single driver Lowther I heard (but without compromised bass and musicality issues)

2) tonal balance and harmonic complexity of Alexandrias and Savoy (but without huge expense and/or need for huge power)

3) liquidity and listenability of higher-end Kharmas (but with more accuracy and transparency)

4) musicality and flavor of vintage horn and other older speakers (but without problems of detail, muddiness, soundstaging)

Please keep in mind I am new to audio and these are my personal impressions, I don't mean to offend anyone with any comments. I just hope to get useful advice from people out there.

Dseid, sorry about taking so long to get back to you. Some terrific recommendations for indian or flamenco music you could check out include:

Ravi Shankar (Indian sitar)
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Sufi vocals)
Prahlad Brahmachari (Bengali Baul music)
L. Subramanium (Indian violin)
Paco de Lucia (modern flamenco guitarist)
Camaron de la Isla (flamenco singer)
Manolo Caracol (flamenco singer)
La Nina de los Peines (flamenco singer)
Carmen Linares (flamenco singer)
Radio Tarifa (moroccan/flamenco fusion)

In general, I think Peter Gabriel's Real World Label is a good starting part to expand into world music. There is also a Rough Guide to World Music.

some random world music I like include:

Wu Jing Lue (chinese qin)
Han Hong (tibetan singer)
Zhou xuan (shanghainese singer)
Zap Mama (kind of R&B actually)
Manu Dibango (african jazz)
Teresa Teng (taiwanese pop)
Toto La Momposina (colombian/cuban fusion)
Alberto Pacheco (colombia cumbia)
Amalia Rodrigues (portuguese fado)
Cesaria Evora (african singer in creole)
Ladysmith Black Mambazo (south africa)
Angelique Kidjo (african pop)
Caetano Veloso (brazilian pop)
Ruben Gonzalez (cuban jazz piano)
Paquita de la Barrio (mexican singer)
Julio Preciado (mexican singer)
Astor Piazolla (modern tango)

I also recommend googling "world music" and sampling music online, or even taking risks by ordering highly recommended CDs. There is so much great world music out there (after all, music from most of the world's cultures would fall under this one category). One thing often leads to another, and it is exciting to stumble across hidden genre gems, such as Malagasy guitar music, South African township gospel, Sundanese gamelan music, etc. I have a weakness for cheesy female mandopop, but don't dare make any such recommendations on this audiophile site :-)

I stopped listening to music for the last few years :-( so I can't give you a more extensive list off the top of my head..my CD collection is not with me, and I've forgetten lots of names of what I used to listen to. This is one of the reasons I want to get a really nice system now, to bring music back into my life. Feel free to ask if you need more information, however.

My current potential shortlist for future auditioning include: Carfrae horns, TAD 2404, Coincident Total Victory II, Green Mountain Audio, Merlin, DeVore, Von Schweikert, and a few others...it will take me considerable effort to find these. For auditioning purposes, I would consider speakers of any cost, I am happy now even to know which speakers exist that I can dream of.