Another set of secondhand speakers

[Black Stuart]

I'm almost certainly ahead of my own personal curve thinking about speakers aka first the room to be used and then think about the speakers to be used in it.

Over 20 years ago I popped for a s/hand set of Heybrook Sextet Mk 1V's. Bought them from a lovely man in Kent who was forced to get rid of them by his so righteous Christian dragon, apparently they 'interfered' with her church coffee mornings. Personally I would have got rid of the dragon first without a second thought, agreed it would have been the expensive option but so satisfying.

The Heybrooks are a lovely speaker and certainly the best effort Peter Comeaux did at Heybrooks. The Toningen ribbon tweeter is great and the cabinet's dimensions have been copied by many but the bass goes only so far. I'm about to rip out a few of the x/over components for much better ones - Mills r's and some K73-16 caps and utilise what I have learned about analogue signal cables to change the internal wiring as well but still the itch is there to acquire speakers that really do bass. I don't mean OTT bass but what is no the LP or hard disc.

Even when I have popped for a 'new' s/hand set the last thing I will change will be the UBYTE 2 speaker cables. Eventually they will be swapped for a set of' Heaviside' type cables.

I accept the argument that multiple small woofers can emulate 12"/15"/18" jobbies I don't have the will anymore to use the Grand Heil AMTs that Andrew Ivimey sold me to make a set of OBs (sad but true).

It's years since I saw the real benefit of having a neutral system - the old time warm/soft Quad/Radford et al sound is nothing for me but neither is s/s only.

I use hybrid power/h/amps that use a single driver/2 output tube pre-amp section for both with mosfet o/put. This may/can be changed for class D o/put if the speakers demand lots of power but I can't imagine ever moving away from valve pre-amp - 6F8G Tung Sol RP driver/output Russian 1578.

I've looked at Kef but the Canadian Paradigm appeal, especially the Reference Studio 100 v2/v3. I'm not a snob Emotiva T1 could be the answer. I am prepared to shell out up to £2K used - all suggestions will be received with an open mind