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What's the best passive (and preferably floorstanding) speaker one can find for $2,500 or less?

VintageFlanker

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Ups, you are right.
No doubt: The Aria 948s are definitely the bigger of the line.
These ones are very probably my next floorstandings purchase. In France, the pair became incredibly cheap these last months. The cheapest offering was 1398€/pair during Summer Sales... Far away from the $4999 retail price I saw in US.

I would say the entire Aria line mesures good. Here are some FR graphs for the 948s:

- From AUDIO, DE:
Screenshot_20191006-212349_Drive.jpg


- From Audio Video, RU:
Screenshot_20191006-212122_Drive.jpg


- From Stereo Prestige Image, FR:
Screenshot_20191006-212918_Drive.jpg
 
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Vixenlotus

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You can get a used set of Revel F30 speakers for about 1500 and save 1K. they are giant killers!!!!!! if you can listen to a set.
 

Rja4000

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The cheapest offering was 1398€/pair
I got mine for 1700€ a pair a few years ago.

During several (non blind) listening tests, they sounded better to my ears than some serious speakers, much more expensive, and I already thought they were a steal... when I thought I'd have to pay 3k€ for a pair.
When my favorite dealer said he had some pairs for sale at 1.7k, I bought them in 15 minutes (including the time to travel to the shop).
 

orangejello

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If used speakers are acceptable, many of the large Dunlavy SC series should fit the budget. I bought a pair of SC-Vs a few years ago for $2500 after some negotiating. They are full-range by anyone's definition, flat to +/- 1.5dB anechoic and pair matched to be within .5 dB at 10' on the tweeter axis -- and they image like nothing else I have ever heard. I would have loved to hear what John Dunlavy could have built with modern dsp had he and his company survived another decade or so.
SC-4 are a little more manageable. The V weight about 300 lbs each.

Further, John was working on SOTA DSP speakers before he died. I got to hear John’s $250,000 DSP prototypes. Best speakers I had heard up to that point. He was a bass player and could not tolerate inaccurate bass. The foundation of all of his larger speakers was extremely good because of this sensitivity.

That said, ASR would have loved Dunlavey. He had a $100000 anechoic chamber into which he drove a forklift carrying each speaker he sold so that it could be tuned to measure +-1.5 dB. He drove my speakers into that chamber to prove to me that his were better. He advised me to buy Radio Shack interconnect because they were the best he had measure. He refused to enter into a lucrative partnership with Audioquest becuase most of their cables couldn’t even come close to the Radio Shack products.

He saved lives in Vietnam by inventing a radio antenna for the DoD that could be curled into a backpack so that the Viet Cong snipers wouldn’t immediately take out the radioman. Yes, used Dunlavey speakers are really worth checking out.
 

FAST

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TEKTON, They are also very efficient so they are easy to drive
 

AM88

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Not floor standers, but the amphion one 15 are the best passives I have heard.
 

phoenixdogfan

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They do not get a pass. They are shit, a completely incompetent product that should not be sold. The excuses made for them in Stereophile are an embarrassment to that publication.
And let's never forget, they're one of Steve Guttenberg's home reference speakers.
 
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