I've always been a Speaker Whore and actually had to shed speakers over the past few years. What I have left:
1. Thiel 2.7 floor standing speakers. Love these, can't part with them, got such a great deal second hand in the Ebony veneer that I wanted.
Super precise, dense imaging, punchy sound, gorgeous tone, the whole package.
2. Joseph Audio Perspectives. I switch these in place of the Thiels, they usually spend a few months at least in the system. Love, love, love these speakers. Very small floor standers that sound MASSIVE, huge soundstaging, great imaging, totally "disappear" as apparent sound sources, bass that rolls out along the floor so I feel it, and the most gorgeous tone of any speaker I've owned (just super clean and pure, even better than the Thiels. But the Thiels are a bit richer than the Joseph speakers).
That keeps me from getting bored. Though I also sometimes throw in to the system:
3. Spendor S3/5s. Tiny book shelf monitors with a big sound (at least in terms of soundstaging) and such a beautiful way with organic sounds - acoustic instruments and voices in particular.
4. Thiel O2. Mid sized, plain box monitors, circa 1983 or so, scooped up from my girlfriend (now wife). Her audiophile brother and father bought these for her when she moved out. It was a low cost Thiel speaker before they offered the time/phase coherent design. This speaker actually helped me get back in to high end audio because it blew me away when we'd listen in my girlfriend's apartment. You know the cliche of audiophiles who start out with Quad ESL 57s (or 63s), then get tired of their limitations and go searching for new speakers...but are haunted by what the Quads do so well that they are trying to get "that sound, but without the limitations?" It's the same for me with those little Thiels. They have, for my ears, a magic level of timbral warmth, the way "wood really sounds like wood, metal like metal" etc, with a super dense palpability - the sense that a bongo or guitar is occupying space right there in a corporeal way. Every time I throw them in the system it reminds me it's the sound I've been searching for "but better."
looks like my speaker shortlist ? Curious about why the R3 had to go ?
