Wow, changing rooms is indeed a call for changing speakers.

As you, I also think matching the speakers to the room is very important. And TWO subs, now that should be excellent. Besides "stereo bass" which I'm not sure exists at lower freqs, two subwoofers will allow infinitely more flexible bass loading than one sub. Every room has standing waves, and smaller rooms have more of them at more frequencies. So by wiggling around the two subs, one should be able to reduce many of the problems.

I'm sure you know all of this, as your plan indicates. Just thought I'd mention it in case other folks are reading and wondering, as I did for a very long time, "Should I get one REALLY good sub, or two pretty good subs". Of course, if you can justify/afford two really good subs, then you're the KING!

As for your quest for monitors, here's to hoping you enjoy the hunt and the eventual change. I do think that all of the speakers you mentioned will be a dramatic upgrade in mids and highs.

Oh yeah, you said:
"I am going to plug the amp into the wall and not the power conditioner and see if it helps any"

Let us know how that turns out. I think we are all playing with power conditioning these days, so any observations like the above will be helpful.

audiofile9 June 06, 2002 19:26

Looks like you've got a pretty well balanced system, and tweaked out very well too. Kind of hard to point to any specific thing, but I would look at the CD player as perhaps not sending everything down the pipe, even though the pipe can handle it. The English certainly know the timing, as you probably heard with the Naim stuff.

Be careful about mating monitors and a subwoofer. In many rooms, it is very difficult to get the sub to blend in seamlessly. The REL's are quite good at blending from what I've heard, but almost all rooms are bad news for bass response, especially when relegated to a single source. If I were in your situation, I would think about CD player and AMP before taking the scary step of speaker change. (besides, the PSB's are quite good). I've heard the BC amp in several systems, and I think the PSB's could use more resolution and control from the amp.

Well, hope that helps. Sometimes, it is tough to find the "next" step, but that is usually a GOOD sign. It means the system is pretty well rounded :)

audiofile9 June 04, 2002 05:13