I still think the best bang for the buck in audio is a pair of the original Focus towers. You can regularly find them in good shape used online for $2,000-$3,000. At 96 dB efficiency, even a McIntosh MC240 can drive them to good SPL. And they sound fantastic at high volume.
I flew to Chicago and then drove to the plant (several hours away) to audition the Whisper XDS and the then-new Aeris a few years ago. Decided on the Whispers because at the time the main set up had to double as the home theater set up and I wanted the wider sweet spot afforded by the Whispers. Enjoyed them immensely for the year I had them in the system before moving on, but eventually decided that I had invested too much in creating a good analog signal chain that it made no sense to reprocess the signal digitally and then back to analog (as was required by the speaker system).
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Main: Wilson Alexia, D'Agostino M400 monoblocks, Ypsilon PST-100 Mk 2 preamp, Helix 1 turntable w/Lyra Etna SL cart and SAT tonearm, Ypsilon VPS-100, dCS Vivaldi DAC, Shunyata Triton v2 & Typhon, Shunyata Cyclops and power cords, Transparent Opus MM2 speaker cables and interconnects, Kubala-Sosna interconnects and power cords.
Family Room: Legacy Focus towers, sub, and surrounds, McIntosh MC452, McIntosh C2500, DHC-80.3, Parasound Halo A-51, Sony HAP-Z1ES, AppleTV, OPPO BDP-105D, Sonos, XBox One, XBox 360, Shunyata Triton.
Office: KEF LS-50, Decware Zen Mystery Amp, E.A.R. 868, Sony HAP-Z1ES, Sonos.
Library: B&W 805 Maserati, JL Audio Fathom f113 sub, twin MC275LE, McIntosh C2500, AMG Viella V12 w/Lyra Etna cart, Sony HAP-Z1ES, Sennheiser HDVD 800 headphone amp/DAC, Sennheiser HD800 cans.
Other: VPI Aries 3 w/Triplanar tonearm and Dynavector 17D3 cart, CTC Blowtorch, Vendetta Research SCP-2A, 2 MC30's, 3 MC240's, MC275 Mk V, MC275 Mk VI, 2 Bob Carver Black Beauties, EAR 890, EAR 324, Parasound Halo A21, Parasound Halo JC-1 monoblocks, Parasound Halo JC-3, Pioneer SX-1250, Pioneer SX-5590, Pioneer SX-1980, Thiel CS2.4 speakers.
A man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's there a Heaven for?
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