I would try to avoid anything with those ghastly bi-wire terminals. Perhaps a pair of Russell K Red 120 or PMC Twenty5 23.i may fit the bill?
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That’s fair enough, floor standers certainly rule out the dangly wire thing.
They are truly the work of the devil, but it would be foolish to rule out a whole raft of good speakers simply because of them. They are really popular in some markets, such as Japan, and manufacturers do of course operate world wide.
I went from credo to sl2 and havent looked back. Particularly pretty I think. Id echo what others have said about £600 feet being unlikely to satisfy. Granted sl2 are a wee bit more than you plan to spend, but if you dont like them you can sell them on at no loss.
Ask about the grills if you are moving to sl2. Not exactly cheap at £190ish from tomtom.
Also very cup unfriendly.
Oh, I’d find the money for a pair of SL2 if they came up, but they are like rocking horse poo 
. Came close once when a dealer said he had a pair, then ignored my calls
I had my dedicated radial partially fitted today, with the final connection in two weeks, so something to look forward to.
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As you like them, I’d test that hypothesis before ditching them. e.g. Supercap on 82 would be nice.
Can the tweeters on Credos be replaced? That would probably reinvigorate them.
Allaes would also fit the bill.
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Hi GM,
I understand this. For much the same reason I have reached the conclusion that I don’t love floor standers. It’s a very personal thing so you or I are not offending anyone’s sensitivity.
I do not like floor standing speakers because they often aim at giving you an amount of body and bass extension that I don’t find necessary in home audio. And they often lack the immediacy and transparency of the best monitors. Last, they are very rarely beautiful objects but their size prevents them from being ignored and imposes them as part of the domestic panorama. So many have large things that have little to do with the rest of the furniture but are ‘special guests’ that only justify their presence sounding.
One of the reasons I have changed gear so frequently, to the point of eliciting amused remarks by some who actually change at least as much as I do, is I could not settle with most speakers. In the end, these:
work both visually and sonically. They’re not perfect but they work. I really think now that it’s the best we can reasonably expect from a stereo system in our living room.
In your space, the Credos look a little bulky. They are square-angled parallelepipeds, and not small to be honest; but I think that a pair of more agile, lean models such as some PMC Twentys would blend in in a more discreet way. Sometimes it’s just a matter of a few inches, of a finish vs another. I have recently brought home a pair of Dynaudio Contour 20s; they are in a gorgeous dark rosewood, glossy finish; yet, I could not get over their extreme visibility. It’s not a minor point! People are picky about a corkscrew’s design, about a pen’s; but they welcome enormous strangers - in pairs! - to their living rooms. Are we sure that the pleasure of replaying the same discs over and over justifies the presence of these aliens forever?
The task of finding loudspeakers that suit the ear and the eye is an incredibly underrated one; if the Sats didn’t have so simple, acceptably looking feet, I probably wouldn’t have them. Speaker stands are never lovely. I, for sure, don’t know any. They are, after all, crutches. But floor standers are small fridges, small cupboards… It’s not easy. It’s taken me a very long time to reach an acceptable, pleasing compromise. If you start with accepting that it will be a compromise, that you cannot be truly happy with any solutions, and that stereo systems have ceased being a balanced part of the domestic view since this:
you may actually end up with true visual and audio happiness.
Best with your quest,
Max
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Probably not what you are looking for, but my dealer (search hifi Otley) has a pair of cherry finish SL2s with Snaxo 242 active crossovers on offer.
If you are in the North of England then a listen to these may help.
Max, that looks so lovely. It’s a beautiful sideboard and the silver stands complement the silver electronics perfectly. Italian interior design has a certain something that is rarely seen in British houses.
I very much agree about speakers - we so often see enormous great things squeezed in to very small spaces between furniture and it’s not a good look. Some people don’t care about design of course, which must make life easier.
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Thanks Nigel. I am well aware of how you are sensitive to visual balance and elegance, having been your guest years ago. I think that GadgetMan’s issue now is exactly one of balancing sight and sound. As for me, I try not to forget that perfection in this context is twice as difficult than it were if only sight or only sound was involved.
Let’s enjoy what we have,
Max
Not cheap, but superb quality and worth every penny if the original foams are crumbling or going gooey.
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Couldn’t agree more about the TomTom grills. Pretty much 100% as per originals.
That is on a longer term list, or possibly a second HiCap, mostly because I don’t have a Fraim, therefore Burndy cables (made from Swiss roll) become harder to accomodate
They are the same type as the SBL’s. Naim used to find the best matched pair for the SBL’s, and any that were left were used in Credo’s. So a matched pair would be good, but I’m fairly sure they have all gone now
Many thanks - wasn’t aware of them, but easy to get to
In that case new tweeters are still available from Falcon Acoustics. I saw them a couple months ago when I bought new tweeters for my SL2s. I checked on the availability of SBL tweeters just out of curiosity. New tweeters gave me a very nice improvement from the SL2s. No doubt it would do the same for a pair of 20 year old Credos.