The Shanling is an unusual-looking, but extremely impressive, piece of gear. And it's very well-built -- clean, tidy, and hefty.

Try the Polk Rti A1 loudspeakers. Bob Reina's review will appear in our September issue. The speakers cost $350 and have higher than average sensitivity.

The Infinity Primus P162 might also work for you.

Consider a full range single driver speaker for that amplifier. Bob Brines makes great stuff at reasonable prices. If his speakers won't work with your amplifier, he'll direct you to something that will.

http://geocities.com/rbrines1/#Pricing

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Try the Polk Rti A1 loudspeakers. Bob Reina's review will appear in our September issue. The speakers cost $350 and have higher than average sensitivity.

That's interesting. In the past they've always been inefficient little bastards, regardless of what the numbers said. Has JA done the measurements yet? I'd love to hear about the efficiency just out of curiosity.

Klipsch RF-52 $512/pair 96dB@2.83V/1m sensitivity

They will take up little more room than Epos ELS-3s on stands.

http://www.klipsch.com/products/details/rf-52.aspx

http://www.avguide.com/file-download?review=2239

http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/p/81332/812608.aspx

You may even be able to find them cheaper. Thanks for the comments Stephen

I like the newer A series RTi over the older one in construction and sonically. The transformation in the series has been audibly noticed over the years and I've noticed comments about the previous iteration being "bright". That could have many causes and certainly subject to interpretation but I understand it.

The Shanling player is very nice, even if the styling isn't my cup of tea...or can of beer.

Mark

"That's interesting. In the past they've always been inefficient little bastards, regardless of what the numbers said. Has JA done the measurements yet? I'd love to hear about the efficiency just out of curiosity."

Mrlowry - Could you expound upon that? Until the LSi threw a wrench in the plan, we've been pretty efficient across the board. The SDA line was all over the place but that was 20 years ago. Just wondering. Idon't think the SDA line is that hard to drive but try telling that to my home forum.

Mark

The old RT series seemed difficult to drive. Maybe the numbers didn't show it but they really just sounded closed in and labored until they were on a "big" receiver (think $1000+). Much less efficient than the Paradigm Monitor series of the same vintage. I wasn't alone in this thinking most of the other 10 sales guys that I worked with back then agreed. Polks on a sub $500 surround receiver was a no-no. This was around 2000.

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The old RT series seemed difficult to drive. Maybe the numbers didn't show it but they really just sounded closed in and labored until they were on a "big" receiver (think $1000+). Much less efficient than the Paradigm Monitor series of the same vintage. I wasn't alone in this thinking most of the other 10 sales guys that I worked with back then agreed. Polks on a sub $500 surround receiver was a no-no. This was around 2000.

Fair enough, just wondering. It's the first I've really read about that historically. Do you mean RT, RTxxxi or RTi? It doesn't really matter...the model numbers drive me crazy. Nonetheless, they all have similar spec's in regards to efficiency and are on par with the Paradigm as well. All the lines were designed to be run easily, and don't require anything special to drive them. Maybe it was just a fluke.

Mark

I'm referring specifically to the RT800 speakers and it's siblings. Again "the numbers" were about the same as the Paradigms but they just didn't get up and go until the power was put to them. When an appropriate receiver was chosen they were competitive with the Paradigm Monitor series. But most customers wanted to buy the $299 to $499 receivers and the Paradigms won their dollars about 90% of the time in that demo. Which is particularly odd because almost nobody walking through the door had heard of Paradigm and I would say 8 out of 10 had heard of Polk.