Dr. Bass,
I have owned Quad Lites and have auditioned (not in length) KEF Eggs, B&W MT series and Mirage Omnisats. While these are all in one league I can tell you that the Martin Logan Motion was a league apart. Infact it was beating some of the best bookshelves at its price. The tweeter in it was simply one of the best I have heard. I would strongly recommend Martin Logan Motion over all of these. You can audition the Motion 4 in Bangalore (Absolute Phase) I suppose (but not as a 5.1 I think). Last I checked the Motion 2 pair costed less than 30k while Motion 4 costed about 35k. I am not sure about the centre channel cost, but it might be atleast 20k. The subwoofer Dynamo 500 should cost you another 30k. So, in all it might come to 30 + 30 + 20 + 30 - just above a lakh as my guess. I would strongly recommend to give these a listen before you buy anything else. Ah
I sound like a fanboy. I am rarely like this, but it was very good
Online forums suggest that these need a very high current amplifier. So, that might bump up the cost further. But, my take is its worth it even if it stretches the budget a little.
As far as the rest, I think Quad is good if you are keen on music more than movies. They are not really that detailed in highs, sounding a bit smooth. I haven't watched too many movies but then if you are behind effects then this might not be the one. I was using it with a Rotel Receiver. You can probably watch in high volumes and still not feel fatigue after a movie. KEF is more for movies I felt. Quite good for those effects like gunshots etc. They were good but not too impressive at that price. B&W is somewhat in between these 2, then again not too impressive for the money. Personally I felt that while all the 3 were good, increasing the size of the speakers a little more can give a significantly better sound. Many of the bookshelves that I auditioned around 20k budget would do a lot better than these sats. Usher S520 can be the smallest of such bookshelfs that give very good sound. So, normally I would have recommended these, but now the Martin Logan for Movies and Music. If size is a problem then nothing can be done. The only reason I took the Quads were because I got them at 50% discount - demo pair and phased out series. Still, sold them and went back to stereo bookshelves.
Anyway, my recent audition of Motion has finally given a sound that I can consider the sub sat combo even for stereo 2.1 And they were competing very well with bookshelves under 50k or dare I say even more. Motion 4's cutoff very quick in the lows. So, it can't be just used as a bookshelf. Needs a sub. But used so, it can really give a tough competition.
Another option that I am checking is if actives can be used. I found that the Genelec 8000 series (a bit costly) or the 6000 series (which might be more in budget) can be used in such cases and then pair them with a pre/processor like Emotiva and it is also a league above the Quad, KEF and B&W. The only problem is that all 5 need to be connected to a power socket adding to the cable count.
hyeah:.