The Crites Cornwalls might suit your music style, to me Klipsch speakers are all about the impact of the music, with a good beat and kind of raucous, energetic sound...the only time I have ever heard a system that changed my heart rhythm to match the drum beats was a set of Klipschorns powered by a NYAL Moscode 600 playing Robert Plant's "Little by Little"...that was nearly 20 years ago and my ears are still ringing...when I feel like I need those things, I 'll replace one of my more "audiophile" speaker sets with my tweaked Heresys...I'll live with them for about a month, but eventually they go back into a closet when I become tired of the Sturm und Drang...but, most all Klipsch speakers are nice and efficient and even flea power amps can play them way too loud to stand....
The MMG's are not really capable of delivering the impact that a set of Cornwalls can...but, even the highly modded Cornwalls give ground to Magneplanars when it comes to sound quality and refinement...there's an airiness and spatial quality that dipoles properly set up achieve that is very difficult, in my experience, to obtain with most all speakers using horn loaded elements, and using the stock mid and high horns used by Klipsch, as evidenced by the modders, even Crites, replacing the tweeteres with something better, seems necessary to add a level of refinement to the Klipsch speakers that do move them a notch closer to the refinement of other speakers...now, this has just been my experience, and yes, I am a fan of Maggies and electrostats like Martin Logans, Quads, Final, Acoustat, and Innersound...and I am a Magneplaner and Martin Logan owner...but, as I said before I do also own Heresys...and Ohms, and Snells, and Boston Acoustics, and Lowthers, and Fostex, and Loth-X, Paradigm, and Signet....
The Klipsch speakers, though, will reward you with good upstream equipment and any scrimping there will be brightly laid out for you to see...you willnot be able to ignore shortcuts, ha!
As far as electronics, how about a Jolida 1501RC, 100WPC, $750, with a Jolida JD9A phono stage at $399...that would be a pretty sweet sounding setup with the Cornwalls, heck, with just about any speaker in the $1K new or used range...18 month warranty on the 1501, 2 years, except tubes, on the JD9A...
You can also get the 1501A without remote control and save a few bucks...
Klipsch speakers are very tube friendly and if you wanted to go full tube (and if it were me I would), then a Jolida 302 would really fill the bill, $950 w/o remote, $999 with...2 year full warranty, except tubes, on the Jolida tube amps...the 302's just never seem to break, and there are also factory upgraded versions using premium parts that add about $175 to the tube amps, but the mods are really nice, well thought out and complementary to the gear, the amps are very carefully set up and tested by Jolida and carry the full warranty...
These are prices for new gear, used gear might shave a bit off these prices...
I, too, have a Dual 1218, don't go crazy with getting a cartridge for it, it really wouldn't do to go much more than a Denon DL110 on it as the sonic capabilities of more expensive cartridges just aren't brought out by the Dual, it's aged tonearm wiring, it's too short tonearm, and that tonearms lack of adjustability and lack of new replacement head shells, and that flimsy mounting scheme in the headshell, are all things that all this series of Duals have that is really sub-par...I use a Stanton on mine as it is just way too easy to swap out the stylus assembly to go between 78's and LP's, and it sounds better than the Grado Blue...just use some decent low capacitance interconnects, a middle of the road cartridge and save up for your next table
The JD9A, though, would support a much better vinyl front end if you should decide you like going down that path...
And, what is the Rotel RCS-971? I couldn't find out anything about that model, even on Rotel's site....
And, if you want a tuner, there's a new Sony HD capable tuner that's cheap and darn good...better than a lot of vintage tuners...especially if they haven't been aligned and serviced recently...
These are just a few of the things I would consider if you wanted to get new gear that had "strong clear honest sound"....
So, you have dozens of choices that you can make, and yes, it is a journey, sometimes long, but quite frequently amusing and fun!
