Moving from floorstanders to bookshelf speakers, recommendations?

86dan · 27 Mar 2024 at 13:16

I have decided to upgrade and move from my floor standing speakers to some nice bookshelf or on wall speakers. Budget is £1350 at an absolute push. Moving from dali oberon 5 series to something else. I don't plan on playing a ref volume or even close, normal volume is around -35 -30.(denon 3800h)

I do already own a kef r2 meta center (timbre matching does not seem to be an issue, at least it wasn't between the oberon/kef combo) and am not interested in the r3 meta speakers. Cant find any 2nd hand black r3 non metas atm or even recently and am currently looking at:
revel m106 (£1000)
xtz cinema m6(£1200)
arendal 1723 bookshelf (£1350)

Any others for me to read up on? experiences from fellow people that upgraded to something similar?

Listening to the ones I have listed is impossible which makes picking harder, measurements all seem decent but mean nothing to me in the grand scheme of things.

The whole timbre matching debate seems blown out of proportion based on my ears. I had oberon fronts/kef center/polk surrounds and monitor audio gen 2 mass sat for on ceiling atmos. All sounded great together with an eq up to 500hz and no glaring issues that I could pick up on. Only noticed a difference when I switched to a Klipsch speaker (I assuming because of the horn) so swapped that out.

mid_gen · 27 Mar 2024 at 13:25

I've been looking in a similar price range, and have gone for a pair of Falcon Acoustics IMF 100, which are based off the LS3/5 components, but more bass extension apparently. A bit of a gamble as you can only buy them in kit form! I should be getting them in a couple of weeks, supposed to be very very good for the money.

The Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary in that price range looked quite tidy too.

Second hand R3's seem hard to come by as you say, probably speaks to their quality though!

I was considering B&W 805S for a while, but depends if you like the B&W sound.

I have Quad 11ls at the moment which are nice but lacking grunt, might re purpose them for the dining room system when the Falcons arrive.

86dan · 27 Mar 2024 at 14:48

mid_gen said:
I've been looking in a similar price range, and have gone for a pair of Falcon Acoustics IMF 100, which are based off the LS3/5 components, but more bass extension apparently. A bit of a gamble as you can only buy them in kit form! I should be getting them in a couple of weeks, supposed to be very very good for the money.

The Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary in that price range looked quite tidy too.

Second hand R3's seem hard to come by as you say, probably speaks to their quality though!

I was considering B&W 805S for a while, but depends if you like the B&W sound.

I have Quad 11ls at the moment which are nice but lacking grunt, might re purpose them for the dining room system when the Falcons arrive.

Interesting, looks really easy to build too given its a kit, will have a read up on that and comete. Never heard b&w so not sure what they would sound like.

hornetstinger · 27 Mar 2024 at 14:55

Depending on room size, and standmount speaker you may need a sub to bring up the low end.

86dan · 27 Mar 2024 at 15:14

hornetstinger said:
Depending on room size, and standmount speaker you may need a sub to bring up the low end.

I already have a sb-3000 that I use, my room is tiny anyway. 10.5ft wide by 14ft long.