Help deciding on speakers (outside USA)

[estbarul]

Hello!
I currently have only a TCL 5 in my living room, me and my wife want to update the sound system in our living room (biggest room in the house) since we both enjoy music and movies/series a lot. For now, I only have 2 points of comparison, some Micca OoOs with a Sony 5.1 STR DH510 that was a present for my dad, and Micca Covo-s which I use over my PC.

I listen to different stuff, mainly rock, indie, metal, jazz, fusion, electronic. My girlfriend loves hip hop, rock, metal and electronic. Here is my lastfm if you want to give yourself an idea of what I listen too. I think some neutral sounding speakers would be best.

Thing is, I live outside USA and can’t ship big speakers, some speaker brands I can find locally are B&W, Dayton, Cambridge Audio, Dynaudio, McIntosh, Sonus Faber, PSB, Focal, Revel, Sonance, Triad, Episode, Bluesound, Naim Mu-So, KEF, Kilspich and Sonos.

I currently don’t know if I should get 2 bookshelf speakers and add a subwoofer (to enhance hip hop, metal and movies I guess), or to get a tower like the PSB T20 and call it a day. Budget is around 800$ for whole setup, the less the better.

What do you guys recommend? To show you pricing examples:
- JBL A130 shipped from USA (on sale): $300
- PSB P5 locally (msrp): $500
- Dayton 1000 sub locally (msrp): $200
- Pioneer VSX 534 locally (msrp): $400
- SMSL A300 shipped from USA: $200
- PSB T20 locally (msrp) $750
- Aimiya A07 shipped from USA: $110

I'm currently debating wether to use a receiver for a 5.1 system or just a class D speaker with a 2.1 setup, but my main worry for now are speakers! If you have recommendations from the other brands I listed I'll appreciate them!

I came to think that some JBL A130 + SMSL A300 + Dayton 1000 for around $700 would be a safe and good all around bet, what do you think?

 

[Moonhead]

Yamaha HS8

 

[estbarul]

Yamaha HS8

Going to check on those, but they are HEAVY and shipping costs break them for me, comes up to about $1000 here.

 

[Moonhead]

Man Thats a Downer, Where are you located?

 

[estbarul]

Man Thats a Downer, Where are you located?

Costa Rica! nice place unless you have to shop for tech! heh

 

[Moonhead]

Maybe eBay to fetch Some Neumann monitors if that’s a possibility. Genelec if they have to be lookers

 

[estbarul]

Do you think the Genelec 8010 is enough for a med-big living room (see them at $350 bhp)? Compared to PSB T20 that comes similar in price after shipping etc to a pair of 8010s. I'll keep an eye for used prices, but i thought it was better to use passives because of modularity, are actives reliable?

 

[Zek]

our living room (biggest room in the house)

How big is it?
You have to consider which speakers can fill that room.

 

[estbarul]

How big is it?
You have to consider which speakers can fill that room.

Hard to judge, it's a new house we are moving too, it has this shape https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/...+for+a+Living+Room+or+Great+Room+Layout+1.png like a long rectangle, I guess I'll be seated in the middle or close to the TV . I saw a Zeos review of Arena130 which sounded really loud, so I supposed that a Stage 130 like the one reviewed in ASR is good enough, maybe to use as surround in 5.1 in a couple of years? Because its on sale price is reaaally cheap.