these will serve as the foundation of my music and ht hub, so i want a choice that i will be able to build upon in the future and will handle a range of musical genres (rock, classical, vocal, country, pop, dance/house, etc.) without breaking a sweat. the source components will also be changing out from my current set up, but my current (and new) gear will have more than sufficient power to drive any of these speakers (pre/pro, amp) from a variety of sources (including digital high-res flac).
budget considerations do matter, up to a maximum of ~$2k/pair. room size limitations are driving my search for bookshelf speakers and they will be supported by a sub for low-end frequencies.
which would you choose? do you have another alternative?
Personally, out of those three, I would personally be inclined to knock the Studio 20s off the list.
Second i'd like to point out that most bookshelves, when placed on a stand, generally have the exact same footprint as a floorstander. Both have their advantages and I definitely wouldn't rule either out based on room size. Small rooms do however require more attention in terms of optimizing sound at the end of it all so you may need more bass trapping, and absorption panels where in a larger rooms you could go with diffusion panels... that sort of thing.
I agree with tesseract's point about auditioning in YOUR room because the room is a huge part in what we hear, and while we can improve issues with the room, we don't want to be misled by show room acoustics.
While the PSBs and Aperions i'm sure are balanced sounding speakers, I'll go ahead and name a few other options that, if I were you, would be my leading ones:
Vaporsound Breeze - like the above PSB and Aperions, this is in fact a small 2-driver bookshelf speaker so, like them, it's not quite suitable for "turning it up" but it does use one of the finest tweeters in the world... for 1k a pair you're getting quite a speaker. Remember, the limitation of a small woofer, even when crossed over to a sub, definitely exists in the upper bass and lower midrange. But realize, that you're basically getting around $700 worth of ultra high end tweeter... in a superbly voiced and well constructed $1000 speaker.
ARX A5 - When you said "will handle a range of musical genres without breaking a sweat" I really wondered why you weren't looking at multi driver towers. Here's a tower that should do exactly that, and based on what i've read so far about the prototype... it looks to be a steal at its going price of around 800 a pair. I'm almost considering selling my EMPs to get two of these... and with their thin footprint they'll probably be smaller physically than even the stand mounts you're looking at.
EMP e55ti - ...the above's not to say my EMPs aren't wonderful speakers. They measure extremely flat on axis, with a wide sweet spot and a surprisingly coherent soundstage. I honestly consider them an amazing deal at $800/pr - it's just that the guy that was evaluating the A5 prototype thinks the exact same thing about the EMPs! :yikes: - I think they're fabulous speakers with a neutral tonality as long as they're not too far from the wall.
Soundfield Audio Monitor 1 - If you want a stand mount that can belt out upper bass and midrange and blend seamlessly to a sub, this would be my option, no doubt. And that's not the only reason either. Because it uses a sweet coaxial midrange, it'll have a very coherent sound to it with a reduced dependancy on room acoustics to sound good. And it'll sound neutral.
Philharmonic Audio 1 / 2 - This one's raising the budget a bit from the previous choices, but the value is extremely good. You could probably treat the $1600 Phil 1s as a $5000 caliber speaker - no exaggeration. The Phil 2s take it a step further by upgrading from a great tweeter to the same tweeter I was talking about above.
JTR Triple 8HT-LP - All of the above are fine speakers in their own right, but none of them have high efficiency. Like the soundfields, the JTRs have the coherency and room independancy of a coaxial midrange/tweeter, but these things are ultra sensitive. That means they can play louder than anything above without ever "sounding" like they're playing loud. However the price speaks for itself - it edges just over your $2000 budget. In a smaller room it might not be necessary to have high efficiency/high output though, so it might be redundant.
Other speakers that I would also personally consider:
JBL LSR 2328
Ascend Sierra Tower
Salk SongTower
Good luck. :TT - I know I may have overwhelmed you but I figure if you're spending all that money, it's worth while to weigh many options. Yes, it's difficult to guage the value of an internet direct speaker and some can actually be a mess just like some brick and mortar speakers can be great and some can be a mess. But I do personally believe in the high value of internet direct FWIW.
