I played with a variety of conventional speakers and ss amps for over 10 years. I never had the cash to have over 10k (retail) or so invested in the system, and always bought used so I didn't lose money when I wanted to try something new. It was fun and I learned a lot, but like so many, I continued to change components and speakers looking for something that would keep me happy long-term. I also played with room setup and cables, but it never really got "there".
What got me into Omega was researching a new system for a smaller room I was moving into because I was going back to school. I had bipolar speakers before I bought the Omegas, but the new space wasn't big enough for them. I went to a local hi-fi shop and asked if they had any high effeciency speakers and low power tube amps to try out, but they didn't carry that type of equipment. The manager of the store recommended Omega after hearing them at a show... they were more money than I was planning on spending, but Louis had a one-off pair of 4.5" XRS he could give me a better deal on. I bought them, initailly using them with a Trends t-amp. I could hear the promise, but it didn't deliver fully until I built a tube amp for them (in my avatar). The result of the el34 SET, built from a Tubelab Simple SE (
http://www.tubelab.com/ ) pcb, a ecc88 preamp, and a good digital source has made for a system I am finally happy with. I don't feel the need to tweak it or try other components. I will make the updates that Louis recommends for the Super 3 XRS cabinet, and buy the Alnico drivers when they are available, but other than that I think that's it. I'm done.... finished spending money and finished trying to find what's missing from my system.
I have listened to A LOT of other systems, and attended RMAF twice. You might be able to do better than Omegas and a simple tube amp, but I believe your budget will need to be an order of magnitude higher and even then you might not do any better.
