Which Vintage Upgrade: 7's, 8's, 10's, 11's, or fix my M5B's

Zentish

Sub-title: Monitor 10A's or RTA 11T keep my 5B's or wait for some M7's or 8T's

I'm looking at either replacing my Monitor 5B's or upgrading them.

I love the sound of my M5B's although they've been showing their age.

Locally I can get a pair of Monitor 10A's or RTA 11T's used from CL for $150 OBO.

http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/ele/4341350190.html

http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/ele/4341055169.html

The 10's and 11's are both a stretch for the size of my room: 13'wide x 11'deep with the 55" Samsung centered on the 13' wall, but they're so much sweet speaker for such a great price.

I'm so conflicted! My choices seem to be:

Refresh the M5B's I've owned since 1985, RDO-194's and an x-over refresh would run me around $200.

Purchase the 10A's from CL, and probably still upgrade the x-over, although they look to be peerless tweeters so there's that.

Purchase the 11T from CL, and maybe face a tweeter and x-over upgrade project right away.

Wait for some Monitor 7's or even RTA 8's to show up locally on CL or ebay and move on those.

I would love some advice from the community.

I'm also worried that my AVR would have trouble driving the 10's or 11's. I have an old Carver 0.5T in the garage but it buzz's out the speakers and would likely need some work before I could use it for my mains.

So conflicted!

95% of my listening is home theater, although I do sometimes sit down, push the "PURE" button on my ONKYO, and just float in my M5B's. Yesterday my 15 year old wandered in and asked what I was doing - I gave her the sweet spot, told her to close her eyes and asked her where she was hearing the instruments coming from. Her eyes popped back open and she started pointing to different places in the room like I'd just told her some secret of the universe or something!

THANKS!

westmassguy

The 5Bs are excellent, and when combined with a good sub, and a crossover refresh will sound great, and have a small footprint. They can also be TL'd, for use with the better RDO-198-1 Tweeter. That being said, I'd get the RTA-11Ts over the Monitor 10s. They have a narrow front like the 5Bs, but are very deep, and don't need stands. The 10s are wide, take up more space, and would also need stands. Your upgrade path for the 10As is limited with the Peerless. If the 11s are the original Ts, then you can do a crossover refresh, and use RDO-194-1s, or TL them and use the RDO-198-1s. The 11s will also go deeper than the 10s, and you wouldn't need a sub for 2 channel listening. The 10As are 4 ohm, however the 11Ts are 8 ohm compatible, so most likely 6 ohms. Should be an easier load to drive.

StantonZ

Can't disagree with any of the advice here, but thought I'd add the following.

I think your room is on the small side, so it's possible something like the 10's/11's would over-whelm. However, I view the peerless tweets as a big plus, even with an XO upgrade (I will never replace my peerless tweets); the other plus would be I think you can get by WITHTOUT a sub with the 10's (I do). Again, given your room size, you might do well to keep/rebuild the 5's and look for a matching pair of 7's.

Zentish

The room size is definitely a challenge. With the 5B's I can slide them back and forth and away from the wall a bit. The 7's or 8's would still allow some leeway to move the speakers along the wall, with the 10's it would be tighter and the 11's can really only be placed in one exact spot because of how the couch and ottoman are arranged.

The 10's, with the dual woofers, seem like they would be too much for the room - the narrower fronts of the 5/7/8/11 appeal to me - I think they might sound better than a 10 in that room.

I also have a pair of 4a's I bought new and 5jr+ (one of them needs a PR replacement) I bought at a thrift store recently for $15.

So the other dimension to my dilemma is how I'm going to fit the HT back together again.

Great advice everyone - THANKS!