A quick review of five speakers $250-$500

rxonmymind

Super Member
Lately I've been looking for some "classy" looking speakers that would mesh decently with a small bedroom. Ours namely. I reached out to several members here & they were kind enough to respond at least. Well, I decided to have my feet do the walking and visited couple big box stereo shops. Looking to stay within the $500 range & perhaps justify a smidgen more if it was especially good this is what I had available.
I'm not a professional audiophile just your average active listener. So in broads strokes this is what I found.
Listened to Energy connoisseur CB20, Deftech studio monitor 55/45, Polk audio Tsx 110B and Polks bigger brother tsx 220b. While the Energies were excellent speakers for steel guitars, cymbals and other metallic instruments and even horns, on bass ironically it put out the most of this round up BUT sounded "metallic" or flat. Sigh. I'd equate them to Klipsch type sound.
The Deftech on the other hand displayed smoother highs than the Energies which I didn't think possible for aluminum tweets but lacked bass in comparison to the Energies or Polks. Btw all these speakers were handicapped the same way only allowing 3" from the wall yet both powered by some monster black funeral mortician type receivers. (In fact EVERYTHING in that room was black. Receivers, speakers, chairs etc. Really depressing room.)
Anyway, it would have been a tight race between the Polks 110B & Deftech. Also, it's funny to note that the Polks bigger model 220b was beaten soundly in the bass department by it's little brother the 110b. Even the sales guy was astonished. Checking the connections it was just the speaker that lacked bass output. Odd. The bass in the 220b practically disappeared to a modest "tap tap" sound.
So I finally pulled the trigger on the Dentons after favorable reviews even though it took a bit of talking to the wife showing her various speakers she even liked the Dentons appearance. It is after all going to be in the bedroom so the art of compromise was the order of the day.
It'll be interesting to match these up against the Infinity P163 which are darn good. Hopefully paired up to my Realistic 2100D these will perform well.

Cheers.
 
Good review - went through a similar search myself recently.

Surprised you liked the deftechs though - I demoed a set of the 55s, some Bostons and some Focal Chorus 706. The Focals are in a different class than the big box stuff, snd I thought the Deftechs sounded muddy and sloppy across the sound spectrum.

Amazingly, you can get a cool looking pair of the Focal Chorus 706V on Amazon right now for $399 - a complete steal.
 
Good review - went through a similar search myself recently.

Surprised you liked the deftechs though - I demoed a set of the 55s, some Bostons and some Focal Chorus 706. The Focals are in a different class than the big box stuff, snd I thought the Deftechs sounded muddy and sloppy across the sound spectrum.

Amazingly, you can get a cool looking pair of the Focal Chorus 706V on Amazon right now for $399 - a complete steal.

Thanks.
I didn't necessarily like the deftechs but out of the choices of which I had to choose those were one of the viable candidates. Unfortunately like you said they were muddy as if a sock had been pull led over them. Except the highs. Pretty nice. The rest your spot on;)

Thanks for the tip on the Focal. Had a full set of them active in my wife car. Power hungry but sounded very nice.
A review of them back in 2008....
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/focal-chorus-706v-loudspeaker/
 
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In that price range is the KEF Q300’s, if you can try checking them out. The Polks sound like they were out of phase, is that Possible?
 
There's so many good bookshelf speakers you should be able to find your flavor. Me I went with the Martin Logan Motion LX16's/15's. While shopping I compared them to the Def Tech 55's and at first I liked the Def's but after some more listening the LX16's were clearly the winner. Better bass than anything that small has a right to. They go on sale regularly for 550
 
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