All the ones you talk about are lifestyle systems where form dominates function (maybe other than B&W). None of them actually come from a real speaker maker (again other than B&W but then B&W is only interesting from the 800 series which are huge).
You can easily get bookshelves speakers from someone like Dynaudio or Proac or a thousand other brands that'll sound much better for less money. Sure they are not exquisite to look at, they look like normal bookshelf speakers but then the philosophy is different - function over form. Also they'll need external amplification.
Thats exactly the reason why I said a benchmark DAC1 should be more than enough. |