help choosing tower speakers

[terrysathome]

I need some advise
I have a cottage near my house. I have a surround system in one room for tv but i need help picking tower speakers for the other room which is strictly for listening to music. I like Tom Wait, old jazz; I listen to small club recordings and like feeling like i am in the room. I love NYC Radio Lab, (or is it NPR?) My hearing is not 100% and I find myself raising the treble when listening to most things. I like rock too (concrete blond) but im am not looking to blow away the neighbors. The room iteself is 16' wide by 26' long with a cathedral ceiling. The speakers will be opposite where my desk is on the narrower of the walls. it has plaster walls but rugs and bookshelves too so it doesnt seem to have too much echo. Any input would be appreciated. oh and budget should be under 4 thousand
thanks
Terry

[blackraven]

Terry you have a lot of choices for that kind of money and you will get a lot of suggestions here. Eventually you will have to decide what sounds best to you. First I have a question for you. What amp are you planning to use and what is its power rating?

Here are a few suggestions on speakers that I am familiar with-

Because you need to turn up the treble-Paradigm S6's and S8's These and the B&W's tend to be a litlle brighter sounding.

My personal favorite's are Thiels (1.6 and 2.4) http://www.thielaudio.com/ and Magnepan's but I dont know if you would like the door panel look of magnepans (MG 1.6 QR and 3.6's). www.magnepan.com

B&W 803's and 804's

PSB synchrony one's.

And check out these Salk speakers. http://www.salksound.com/v3.shtml

[Mr Peabody]

If I had that size room with high ceilings I would definitely consider a pair of Martin Logan's. If your amp doesn't have a lot of power they even feature some with built in power. The woofers are "dynamic" drivers but the rest of the frequency band is reproduced by electrostatic panels. If you haven't heard them you should, they have a special quality about them, large sound stage, gives you a feeling of being there, and you get all the high end energy.

If you have the power to adequately drive them I'd suggest a Dynaudio tower. The Contour may not be in your budget. The Focus would be and I love their sound but some feel they are a bit warm. The new Excite series will have a more pronounced high end and be the easiest series to drive.

I recommend Dynaudio because I've found them to be one of the most neutral speakers I've heard. What I mean by neutral, I have been able to use a variety of amplification with mine and a wide variety of music and have had the speakers perform excellent in each situation. It's not often you find a speaker that can play Mozart as delicate as it should while being able to slam out Metallica with the same precision. Although I feel Dynaudio sounds good throughout the frequency response one thing you can bank on is a bass response that is a cut above the rest. Dynaudio hand makes their speakers and builds each component themselves from the drivers to the coils.

As Blackraven stated we all have our favorites and it will give you an idea of where maybe to start but speakers are very personal and subjective which will require you to do some listening to see which you fall in love with. It is also a good idea to post your system so far for that room. A system has to have synergy and what you have could totally change a recommendation.

[terrysathome]

Thanks to both of you for the head start. I will post my system as you suggest and take a look at some of the suggestions. I need to find a good place to do some listening as well