[Closed] Hi Fi loudspeaker advice please

Kef/B&W/Tannoy...
Difficult to do more than suggest some quality makes for you to audition for yourself; speakers can easily be a mis-match for a given front-end, and size and room placement make huge differences as well.
Try to find a good local dealer who'll let you listen at home after you've made an initial choice at the dealer, possibly even taking along your own amp/player if they don't have anything that matches.
Mission and Mordant-Short are also worth a look, but there are plenty of others around worth listening to.

Afaik, you could replace the sub with a bass guitar amp (assuming that the impedance matches)

Now you can marvel at the grind and clank of lemmys bass.

Try one of the mags (What Hi-Fi etc) to give you some ideas, then go listen for yourself.

What's the impedance of the speakers, is that the issue? Modern amps expect 8 Ohm IIRC.

Afaik, if your bass amps got a 'line-in', then it should be 8ohms?

The input jack on say a 25w amp should be 8ohms too*

*nothings blown up on me yet, but I'd get someone qualified in electricals to have the final word on that.

It'll sound nothing like a sub. but it will extract a lot more of the bass playing as that's what a bass amp is specifically designed to do.

No idea about your amp re tonal qualities but I'm more than happy with my Focal Aria 906's, big stand mounnters, nice looking too, as far as big stand mount speakers go anyway.

Kef LS50's are meant to be great too.

I quite like my Monitor Audio speakers. Took a bit of a punt on them as they were [s]cheap[/s] on a good offer and I needed to replace the big old floorstanders. Did a bit of research first and a few people said they worked well with Arcam amps, which I can confirm they do.

Monitor/Marantz here and very content.

Directional cables, obviously.

If you buy decent quality stuff on ebay then you can sell it again without losing a load - so you can google for likely matches with your amp - or ask in forums - find a decent set on ebay and try them.

Or find a decent shop that will lend you a set to try. Often speakers sound a lot different at home than the shop as the shop either has no proper listening room, or their room is too different than yours.

And some speakers can sound very different on the end of different solid state amps. Had some ProAcs that I didn't like but they sounded fantastic on the end of a tube amp.

I tried some PMC FB1+ and was quite impressed with their bass handling and control. Spendors are nice too.

No idea what budget you're working with. I've got some B&w 685's that aren't too expensive that work really well with arcam, in fact an a19 is going to be my next amp after trying out a load of different combinations at shops. I'm not the biggest fan of the sharper sound speakers like KEF produce and prefer a smooth delivery as I have background music playing as often as music I actually focus on.

The CD player is gonna be a touch on the bright side the amp a fairly warm sound.

for some speakers to be balancing that Tannoy are a good bet.

B&W can be a touch bassy but given you have a sub that sounds like your sort of sound.

Many thanks for all the advice really appreciated, I was hoping that someone already had this combination of CD player and amp and could advise, but I am leaning towards the Tannoy Eclipse 3 and the Q acoustics 3050, will ring around the stores and see who will be able to give a demo hopefully with the same CD and amp units. I have noticed though the issues seem to be with older CD's my later ones sound quite good and I'm wondering if the new CD player and amp are showing up issues with music recordings not really mastered for digital world, in which case I could be on a fools errand so will take a selection of CDs for the demo. I understand the question was very open for Hi Fi choice and my budget ideally would be sub £500 but for an eye opening sound could go up to £1000

You do realise vinyl and streaming is the future.......

The only time I've seen "vinyl" and "streaming" in the same sentence before was in a fetish club.

Yes time to dust off the 1971 PL12D and start playing some of the 1000 plus albums hidden away, streaming isn't that what you get with a cold or man flu ?

Start with an RP3 for vinyl, best speak to Cougar re streaming. Suspect it isn't snot.

You do realise vinyl and streaming is the future

At last, my RP6 and sonos is cool

RP6 has always been cool 😉

Just listening to Pink Floyd on vinyl, transcription turntable, Quad amp, Quad electrostatic speakers (early 60's copper grilled ones), pub next.......I do like a Friday night....

give a demo hopefully with the same CD and amp units

get a cooling off period on the speakers - they can perform very differently in your home environment.

Or don't and be dissappointed...

If you buy decent quality stuff on ebay then you can sell it again without losing a load - so you can google for likely matches with your amp - or ask in forums - find a decent set on ebay and try them.

Or find a decent shop that will lend you a set to try. Often speakers sound a lot different at home than the shop as the shop either has no proper listening room, or their room is too different than yours.

And some speakers can sound very different on the end of different solid state amps. Had some ProAcs that I didn't like but they sounded fantastic on the end of a tube amp.

I tried some PMC FB1+ and was quite impressed with their bass handling and control. Spendors are nice too.

Exactly this ^^^

I have noticed though the issues seem to be with older CD's my later ones sound quite good and I'm wondering if the new CD player and amp are showing up issues with music recordings not really mastered for digital world, in which case I could be on a fools errand so will take a selection of CDs for the demo.

That's a very good point, and one reason why remastering of early CD releases has become popular, because no consideration was given to any sonic differences between stereo masters for vinyl and CD, they just used the same masters, which meant the masters were EQ'd for vinyl, the bass was cut back to avoid sudden transients causing grooves to join together, a problem that affected a number of my favourite albums, and high frequencies were reduced to avoid 'ringing', something not unlike running a damp finger around the rim of a wine glass, which could cause the head of the cutting lathe to overheat.
Also, many of the early CD players, particularly Technics, were over-bright, because they set them up using Japanese recordings rather than western; Japanese music is traditionally very much higher pitched, there is very little bass, it wasn't until Philips/Marantz, and Denon got involved and started building machines set up using western music that the sound became fuller and with greater mid/bass emphasis.
Certain combinations sounded dreadful - playing early CD's on a Technics player into Mission speakers, which tended towards the bright anyway was rather unpleasant, you needed a player like a Marantz or Denon to tame the end result.

[url= https://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/which-are-best-speakers-arcam-fmj-a19-0 ]What HiFi forum discussion about Arcam amp and speakers[/url]

Also, many of the early CD players, particularly Technics, were over-bright, because they set them up using Japanese recordings rather than western; Japanese music is traditionally very much higher pitched, there is very little bass, it wasn't until Philips/Marantz, and Denon got involved and started building machines set up using western music that the sound became fuller and with greater mid/bass emphasis.

You're not wrong, but I'd have lumped Technics and Marantz into the same "over-bright" category.

Also... until Philips came along? Alongside Sony they invented the format!

I've got an early/mid nineties Marantz CD52 (Philips based) and it gives out a warm sound. That runs through a 70's Marantz 2226B receiver (proper Marantz) and then some not-very-good Mission 704a speakers but overall the sound is rich and detailed, great for at home.

In the car I like a brighter, sharper sound for some reason.

Definitely demo required with your units and a wad of CDs. Never buy based on recommendations alone.

Based on recommending what you own, I have a set of Focals which I love. I wouldn't go down the subwoofer route. I have always liked the look of Harbeth stuff I have to say.

Cougar - Moderator
You're not wrong, but I'd have lumped Technics and Marantz into the same "over-bright" category.

I like the old Technics MASH players.
Wouldn't say mine was bright (SL-PG 520, I think) certainly compared to contemporary equivalents from Marantz!

Still sounds better than modern mid range stuff, imo.
Bombproof too.