Oops, I should have read the entire OP. I owned some Diamond 8.3's when they first came out but I don't really recall how they sounded, drank far too much back then, teetotal now though

Q Acoustics seem to be growing in popularity.

How budget is budget ? Like under £30 ? I dont think theres an awful lot of good modern (as in past 10 years) budget stuff for that price. A couple of "under the radar" budget wonders to keep an eye out for would be NAD 8020e (manufactured by KEF), any of the Pioneer Prologue series (they ...

You can shorten them if you need to but I wouldn't worry about it. As they are Bipolar (AKA non-polar) they can be mounted either way 'round, if you're OCD its nice to ensure the writing goes in the same direction on every one once installed for uniformity.

Yep, then you spray the cone with plastidip and listen once dry... Repeating until it sounds right IIRC ? It seems a pretty foolproof method to me. The outcome will be worth the effort Ronin

The stuff I bought did 2 x 5" drivers with half a pot left so might just about cover the bass drivers, its OK but there is greater opportunity for fine tuning using the Docs method.

Need a nice dollop of clotted cream with that Shane.

Too Apple mate. Its a popular style, Apple themselves stole it from Dieter Rams... I understand what you mean though, the shiny black box is part of the DNA so it just wouldn't be right. I kept pondering it though and I think the most difficult part to get right would be the control knobs, obviousl...

Fair enough !

Further off topic: Am I alone in thinking a stack of white NVA acrylic boxes would look lovely ?

Peter Belt with his funny stickers

I'm more interested in the Japanese copies, Pioneer SE-700 same age as your Monitor 10's but have a maximum input of 35v Probably sound better connected to the speaker outputs I guess.