I have been enjoying the Ascend Acoustic's Sierra-1 speakers.

Great dark red bamboo finish - so a great looking speaker - a deep bass response - though sometimes if not positioned correctly is seems the bass is behind the rest of the music - good clear mid tones and a solid high end that isn't open and airy sounding - more on the black side. But every detailed none the less.

So far this is the most exciting bookshelf I have heard under $1000. It has a good dynamic reach - as in when playing some larger complex classical pieces it doesn't fall apart - and when the drums and whole orchestra kicks in you feel it - with horns and rock music the excitement is palpable and in your face.

They aren't the most efficient speaker so they do need some power and some time to break in They also provide a fairly linear frequency presentation. As in there doesn't appear to be too much of a warm bump in the mid range like Monitor Audio & B&W. I felt they have better bass response than some Dynaudio bookshelves speakers I have heard.

They are easy to set up and position - very heavy with little to no vibration when cranked up. Staging is good but not mind blowing. They aren't conversation inducing - as in they don't have a relaxed response around 3kHz - as in it can be hard to talk over them at moderate volumes. This is in my opinion a more realistic sound but at the same time might not work in an office environment. If you were to pair them with a pentode amplifier you would get a relaxed sound - but you said you already have something.

My only complaint is the mid range detail - it could be better - but given the speakers price point it could just be me being used to speakers 4 times its price.

http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages...SRM1/srm1.html
http://www.ascendacoustics.com/image...esso_ng_hr.jpg

Anyways - just my two cents - I've not heard everything out there - but from what I have heard I do like these the best.