Hi Shredder,
As the responses show from those who own or heard LIO, there are *many* speaker options to choose from!
At the risk of stating the obvious here, I think it is important to first understand that more than any other component, your speakers (along with the room that they are placed in, as well as the positioning of your speakers
and listening chair within your room) have the most influence over what you will hear. I believe you can begin determining the speakers that will give you the best results for your money by first trying to eliminate those that probably will not work out so well.
For example:
- If you cannot pull the speakers out at least 3 feet (ideally more) from the wall behind them, then you probably won't get the best out
of a dipole design like an open baffle speaker. Sure, they will still "work" closer than 3 feet, but not optimally.
- If you are in a small room, you probably want eliminate a large floorstanding model because it will most likely will overpower the room with low frequency energy.
- If you are limited to placing speakers in or close to a corner, some are designed for this (Audio Note comes to mind).
- If you like to play at loud volumes (and would be using LIO's internal MOSFET AMP module), you want a speaker with a higher sensitivity specification (Volti comes to mind, as do Spatials if you have the room for them).
- Are there "spouse acceptance factors" to consider? I do hear about this quite often, so it is worth bringing up.
The list of variables goes on and on...
Once you know what kind of space you have to work with, then you can start looking into the type of sound that you want. From your post, it looks like you have been to an audio show at least once, correct? So you probably got to listen to a number of rooms that sounded good to you, some that did not, and hopefully some that you were highly impressed with? From the ones that you were most impressed with, did you get to listen to the types of music that you like to listen to at home, and at the playback volumes that you like to listen at?
Some factory-direct speaker companies (Spatial, Zu, Tekton come to mind) have a return policy in case you are not satisfied with the results. If you are buying from a dealer, some will let you take their floor-model home to try for a few days. There is no better place to evaluate how a speaker will sound than your own listening room.
Feel free to email or call me if you have questions about specific speakers that I have used at shows, or just questions in general
about what I have mentioned above.
Thanks to everyone who has posted so far in trying to give Shredder some suggestions!
Vinnie
