Best looking stand-mount speakers

[nickd01]

I'd like to replace my floorstanders to some stand mounted speakers to be more girlfriend and room friendly.

They'll be in a 14*19 open plan wooden floored room, against a wall.
Powered by Cyrus mono-bloc's
Wide apart, a good 10 feet.

But, I want some that look good. Now, I like these:
http://www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk/display.aspx?infid...
or these
http://www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk/display.aspx?infid...

but there must be some other cool looking speakers that also sound good?

Does anyone have any links that they could share?

[allgonepetetong]

That's big room, you'll need some sizeable speakers to fill it with sound I would have thought.

Not argueing with you but can't understand your logic. What is more GF and room friendly about standmounts than floorstanders?

They are both same height and have a similar foot print.

Or are you using the GF to justify buying new kit?

[The_Burg]

What are your existing speakers?
Not sure what you can do really, other than the finish, a box is pretty much a box.
TBH i think a floorstander is probably less obvious than a stand mounter on a metal framework, though i do agree personally a standmount does look geeky cool.

[Emeye]

Buy you girlfriend some blinkers to wear. As long as she is looking forwards you'll be fine.

Or get a new girlfriend.

HTH.

ETA: I had an ex who made me leave all my decent HIFI behind when we moved in together, so I purchased a surround sound system with Satellite speakers and Subs for the lounge, but whilst these are great for movies, for music they just ain't good enough. I've never been impressed by BOSE.

I now have a different gf and I'm working my way to a decent HIFI setup - she appreciates the sound quality and not just the bleeding colour or size (of the speakers!!!) - she also has a hot-hatch and drives properly. I'm lucky.

Edited by Emeye on Wednesday 9th December 17:50

[fildigger]

This may be an Obvious one But the Bose systems for function/appearance & performance take some beating!

Why have floor standing? Can you not mount the speakers on the walls?...Possibly more girlfriend freindly!!...certainly Hoover friendly.

[grumbledoak]

If you really want to be room-friendly,

[Plotloss]

http://www.anthonygallo.co.uk/pages/products-speak...

With the matching curved floor stands.

[The_Burg]

Plotloss said:

http://www.anthonygallo.co.uk/pages/products-speak...

With the matching curved floor stands.

Good looking? My god i think i'd have more chance of placing a pair teak isobariks in the lounge without complaints!

(Beauty in the eye of the beholder and all that but they really are ugly).

[Plotloss]

They generally have a very high WAF

[Denis O]

I have these on the end of some reasonably high end Naim equipment.

They used to be sited on a carpet over concrete floor in a room that was 27ft x 15ft. Sat about 2ft from the rear wall and 18" from the side wall, They had no problem filling the room with music and the design is very femal freindly.

[Beardy10]

For good looking speakers I think you'll struggle to find anything much better looking than Sonus Faber

http://www.sonusfaber.com/eng/collections_cremona_...

[dalos260]

These are quite new.

http://www.mordauntshort.com/summary.php?PID=84



Maybe not to everyones taste, but I like the look. I can vouch for the floorstanders; Utter class.

[WhoseGeneration]

nickd01 said:

I'd like to replace my floorstanders to some stand mounted speakers to be more girlfriend and room friendly.

They'll be in a 14*19 open plan wooden floored room, against a wall.
Powered by Cyrus mono-bloc's
Wide apart, a good 10 feet.

But, I want some that look good. Now, I like these:
http://www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk/display.aspx?infid...
or these
http://www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk/display.aspx?infid...

but there must be some other cool looking speakers that also sound good?

Does anyone have any links that they could share?

Good Dealer, say above, listen to speakers they suggest, take those that you think you like home to try in your room, then decide.
To repeat the age old stuff, your ears, your music, in your room with your other equipment.
The Internet can only do so much.

[Slimmy]

I've just bought the floor standing Revolution Signature model from Tannoy. The bookshelves are small, but good sound (auditioned them first).



It's been said above already, you really should go to a good dealer and audition a few. This is my first 'proper' hifi and the audition process was eye-opening to say the least. It also doubled my budget!

[Murph7355]

You should ask your gf, not us!

My guess is that she wouldn't be too keen on either of those B&Ws.

From experience, females tend to go for:

- totally hidden cables. Cables strewn everywhere is a red rag to a bull.
- smaller the better on the speaker front.
- discrete as possible. Better that they cannot be seen at all, or if they can that they are very subtle.

On that basis, you're going to have to compromise on something - sound quality or ear ache from the other half. So you need to decide on that point first.

Check out some properly set up "satellite" set ups. With a decent integrated sub (easy to hide!), cohesive set up and good amp you don't have to compromise *that* much for music (though perhaps I have simply decided that compromising on this is better than getting ear ache...you can't here any music with a girl moaning about her lounge looking st!). And get her looking at various options with you.

[Toffer]

These sound lovely and can be found new for around £2,500/pair...IMHO they punch above their weight.
http://www.monitoraudio.co.uk/products/platinum/pl...

[OldSkoolRS]

I'm biased, but I'd certainly recommend a listen to the PMC TB2i speakers. I recently bought some TB2+ (the previous model) secondhand to upgrade my DB1+ speakers and I'm over the moon with them. I sold on my DB1+ too so it only cost me £50 to upgrade....bargain. More money left over to get an Arcam AVR600 after Christmas I hope.

http://www.tlcbroadcast.co.uk/pmc-tb2i-pair-passiv...

Or consider the on wall version (for much deeper pockets, hence why I stuck with the 'traditional' design of the DB1+/TB2+). These 'Wafer' speakers are reported to sound virtually the same as the 'box' version: Wafer 1 equals the DB1i and Wafer 2 equals the TB2i and inwall versions are also available:

http://www.pmc-speakers.com/product.php?mode=view&...

Note that they are often priced as a single speaker at around £650 each for the Wafer 1 and £930 each for the Wafer 2.

[Saintjsmythe]

Hi, I was in exactly the same situation as you about 2 months ago- needed wife friendly speakers/using cyrus mono's/and similar size room. I narrowed the speaker field down, with our £850-£2500 budget, from Monitor audio, B&W, Kef, Neat, Spendor, Mordaunt short and a couple of others to a B&W and Spendor finale for sound quality. Then my GF was called in to choose on design and we walked away with Spendor A5 at £1500. http://www.spendor.co.uk/
They are very compact floosttander and they just sounded 'right'as soon as we heard them. Even my gf who didn't really care said that they sounded the most natural and we then found out that spendor use Cyrus to test their speakers! It was an easy decision although the B&W Cm9 were very good they are HUGE and more expensive and didn't sound quite as good and after spendor made voices a little 'nasely'.

Someone mentioned monitor audio Pl100, we tried tose aswell which was at the very top of our budget and they had a ery open treble but got a bit tiring after a few songs and sounded very 'cold' with a light weight bass as well. Not sure if they match the cyrus well which i have been told has a cool, tight sound.

Anyway, we are very happy with the spendor's and I like the fact that we had plenty of dough left over. More expensive didn't mean better in this case.

[Toffer]

IMHO, MA PL100 speakers require a warm front end...perhaps Linn LP12 or something high-end from ARCAM should do the trick!

[k-ink]

I'd have a listen first, rather than choosing speakers based on looks. Which is like choosing a plasma based on it's sound. Not really the point!

I previously had some Wilson Benesch, which just happened to look pretty good, in carbon and alloy. Most visitors liked them. But I changed them for something that sounded far better - Dynaudio.