Bookshelf speakers for studio apt.

My girlfriend moved to Manhattan year before last and I bought her a pair of these for her small one bedroom......

S5BTL active wireless loudspeaker

I was pleasantly surprised at how nice they sound and she just streams stuff via Bluetooth I am sure a wired connection would sound even better. I think they are around $500 I got a deal on a pair for less than that.

 

A friend brought back a pair of small speakers from the UK. The Mission LX-2's in walnut.
Nice looking, excellent fit/finish. I think they sounded fantastic, especially once he told me
what he paid, 170 pounds [via: amazon.co.uk] I forgot to ask about shipping +VAT. Really
nice quality. Guess they some decent press reviews, as well.
Best wishes.

 

I haven’t heard these, but I know that Scansonic is the speaker brand owned by ScanSpeak, who make some of the best speaker drivers in the world.

 

Having lived in studio apartments with both towers and bookshelf speakers, I feel qualified to answer. You'll want bookshelf speakers, not towers, regardless of footprint "equivalence."

The smaller speakers can be far better adjusted to the room than towers, whose ideal sonic location will inevitably be ergonomically inconvenient: right in the footpath to the door, that sort of thing.

You can adjust bookshelf speakers on a third plane -- their height -- which is often the most important for speaker positioning. With towers, you're pretty much stuck with their given height and in my experience, that's usually too short.

And while I certainly don't have the auditioning experience of most posters here, it has also been my unscientific observation that at the price levels being discussed, the smaller speaker is going to be the better speaker. A floorstander will cost more in cabinet materials and shipping. All things being equal, the smaller speaker should be able to invest more in the crossover and speaker components.

As possible evidence, there are legendary, inexpensive small speakers: the Boston A40, the Linn Kann, the Spica TC-50 and now the KEF LS50 and Wharfedale Denton. Not too many inexpensive floorstanders come to mind. Maybe the Advent Large? Regardless, I don't think I'd ever go back to floorstanders unless I had a large, dedicated room.

 

Again, I'd like to thank everyone for their input. When I started this thread I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole went. The sheer number of options available and time, effort and money required to achieve superior sound quality is mind boggling. For the last two weeks I was obsessed with everything and anything related to sound, and for the sake of my own sanity, I'm going to pause for a while.

Anyway, in the spirit of "finding for myself" what setup works for me, I bought a modest JBL 305p. I think this is a decent start to understand what I'm looking for and compare it with speakers I'm planning to audition soon like KEF LS50W, Focal etc. I'm curious to see, all things being equal, how a $300 monitor compares with expensive ones.

 

Lower-cost speakers (<$500, say) get better and better. We live in a golden period of audio, in my opinion.

 

Nice choice.

 

I picked up a pair of KEF Q100 last year, and I love them! I have mine on actual bookshelves. They sound great.