Since we began the living room redesign, I’ve wanted to replace the old black Boston Acoustics skinny tower powered speakers with some better looking non-powered ones. The Boston Acoustics sound great, but they have to be loud in order to get their built-in subwoofer amplifier to come on; if you run them quieter, they sound bad. And quieter is how we normally use them. Also, the skinny black design doesn’t really suit the new living room.
So today we headed up to Ensemble in New Hampshire, a rare high quality audio store and talked with John about what I wanted; I mentioned “Wharfedale”, a brand I’d known as “fabulous and out of reach” when I was growing up in England – and we happened to be sitting next to two sets, one looked really good but was priced way high! But by luck, these Wharfedale Opus 2-3 speakers were on clearance, significantly reducing their price, so we tried them.
Connected to an amplifier like mine, they sounded terrible! But then John hooked them up to a much better amplifier, which brought out their true and great sound … so now we’re looking at buying an amplifier too.
Then, more good news. The showroom demo speakers we are looking at are the last, so they can be discounted further, down to the range of feasibility. And so, sold.
In our living room, they go well with the floor – but we need some more furniture, and painted walls! Maybe a bigger TV too:
M&I / GBMINI 