Gone 2.0

Was not expecting the S20 to be the clear, hands-down winner. But, I'll have to give them a try if adequate power will be a total non-issue. Sub would be nice. I've even thought about 8" being suitable for an apartment. But, I could be 2 rooms away and still hear plenty of the M30s simply playing Dave Matthews at a moderate volume. That makes me nervous. When I put them on steel stands, bass improved dramatically. The cello from Thelonious Monk live stuff sounded real nice. 2.0 is good for me right now in this environment. Again thanks for the feedback.

Well, I ended up going with the S15, which I picked up today. But, that was largely based on the recommendation of getting the S20. So, it isn't necessarily that I ignored anyone's advice.

Since the S20 was completely sold out everywhere here, I picked up the last pair of S15 in a 50 mile radius as far as I know.

I remembered a review I read of the old LSi 7, which was a 5.25" bookshelf. The reviewer said they went plenty deep for musicality purposes.

So, I figured the S15 might accomplish the same end since they physically appear to resemble the LSi 7 in many ways. They've got that bass port on the back. They're bigger than typical 5.25". They're being marketed as maybe not audiophile but near-audiophile I guess.

I also figured that perhaps in some ways they might be an improvement on the LSi7 since they represent the fruits of more recent R&D.

So far they have not disappointed. They do sound somewhat underpowered, but that's all the more reason why I don't regret skipping the S20. That is, I think they could image better with more power.

But they sound great as it is right now--definitely a phenomenal improvement over the M30s. They played my go-to low freq class jazz track with snappy realism. "You Just Stepped Out of a Dream" by a Wayne Marsh / Lee Konitz duet is the song. That's about as low as I expect speakers to go. "Karys Trance" is another heavy cello track on that album. Again, sounded terrific. Not disappointed at all.

All Dangjo Reinhardt recordings in existence have horrible sound quality. But, it was truly an experience to hear the noise from the master recording sound so pronounced.

No buyer's remorse here. Reviewers for sub-$300 speakers will add "...for the money." With my current set-up, I don't think more money on speakers would've made much of a difference if at all.

It turned out that I had forgotten to recalibrate. It completely slipped my mind that the Audyssey settings still apply in stereo mode unless pure direct is selected.

So, the cuts to the L/R channels had been -6 and -5, respectively. The M30 EQ settings probably weren't helping either.

On top of that, I had forgotten to switch dynamic volume back on. I had turned it off for the 5.1 because it made the center sound weird for reasons I was never able to figure out.

Dyn vol acts like the good old-fashioned loudness button to me. So, I have that switched on now. Also, the db cuts are -3 L/R instead of -6, -5. Also, the calibration set the S15 to large, so they're playing full range off the bat.

They do not sound underpowered at all at this point. Someone in this thread had mentioned that the AVR should be adequate for power. That's when I found an online review that bench tested it at rated power.

Then I started thinking that maybe since it's an AVR amp it's not holding its rated power dynamically or for extended periods of time. I was considering the Onkyo 5010 75x2 stereo amp since it's sort of within my budget I guess. But, the dampening factor of 60 really gave me some reservations.

But, thinking all of that through led me to remember that I needed to recalibrate, and now they sound even better. Again, this thread really put things into perspective for me. Thanks again to all.

I'm trying to find an in-depth discussion on terylene vs silk vs metal tweeters. So far nothing that really elaborates on the differences. I suppose it's a stiffer material compared to silk. Or maybe it isn't. These are clearly much more detailed speakers than the Monitors that I had gotten accustomed to. But, it's my understanding that differences can't be narrowed down to one factor like tweeters, woofers, etc. This appears to be a completely different speaker from the cabinet to the crossovers, and from the woofer to the tweeter. But, if I didn't know these were terylene, I'd have leaned more towards metal if guessing. During some of the more HD tracks, my ears tell me that I'm auditioning a pair of B&Ws at Magnolia. Then my mind chimes in with a reminder that I'm in my living room sitting across from a pair of Polks.

Re: what you're saying about width, I noticed that the off-axis response is somewhat narrow. I could be wrong, but I think that has to do with the crossovers? I remember awhile ago that there was a guy on this forum who was upgrading people's LSi xovers. Since I plan to hold onto these for a while, I think an investment in fine-tuning wouldn't be a bad idea.