Danny,
"-Besides guys, no matter how tall it is it will still take up the same amount of floor space.-"
Exactly. I never understood how people looked down on tall speakers (no pun intended)?
It's not like they put plants on top of their shorter speakers?
My Newform 645's were actually a bit taller than the Alphas. Never a prob. for my wife or myself.
I've suggest to people though that they don't need to make the base as large as your plans call for.
I found even before I put the base plate on I woulda had to try very hard to push over an Alpha cabinet on my carpet.
The VMPS RM-40's are about as wide around (though shorter) and they don't have any base at all. In fact a narrower bottom that the rest of the speaker!?
Even so.. they didn't feel too 'tippy' when I heard them and moved them around a bit.
Would you disagree with my suggestion of making a smaller base for anything other than 'just in case/safety' reasons?
LouD,
What are you talkin' about?
If you think the cost of the Alpha kit is high, then so are you. hehe J/K
Seriously though... try to find a lower priced true line source for this price. Either you can't or it won't come close to the clarity, effi. freq. range, etc...
$~2,500 to build your own finished in fully wrapped veneer of your choice.
If you're looking for a ~$500 kit then you're not looking for world class performance. And that's fine, but that's what the Alphas are.
Even at $2,500 that's a very typical modest price for a very good quality mid-level speaker from many great speaker companies, but it's not even close to the cost of these companies top of the line speakers which is what the Alphas should be compared to -as it typically kicks the crap out of them.
There's no better value in speakers IMO. I know that sounds like an overly boastful statement, but it's true from everything I've seen and heard.
If you disagree I'd love to hear about what you think that speaker would be?
"-$450 to $500 per pair, kit only, would be the sweet spot.-"
Yeah.... that would be an awesome price for a world class speaker. Never gonna happen.
You're talking nice monitor speaker prices, not a speaker equal to ~99db point source that can handle a huge amount of power, effortlessly fast/dynamic on both the planars and the woofers, loads the room w/ pretty much full range bass almost totally free of bass modes, pretty much no floor or ceiling bounce.
Why don't you just buy one of Danny's kits in that price range? That's about the best quality you can get for that price.
There's only a few speakers that I think could possibly match or beat the Alphas and you'd need 5 figures for any of them, and I've heard several well known 5 figure speakers that don't do it at all.
You should seriously consider building this kit. It's easy and you'll beat almost everything out there. It's a VERY cheap kit in relative terms. Relative being -world class.