Hifi for peanuts!

I bought my pair of MS20i Pearls after hearing about them on various forums. They are basically an upgraded version of the MS20i with better crossovers and drivers (the MS20i is basically the standmount version of the MS25i).

I bought mine from ebay for around £60 second hand including some "ok" Gale stands. They were in very good condition, so I would say that £50-£75 is about the price you should look to pay.

They sound incredible.

What you have to remember with this generation of Mordaunt Short speakers is that it was before MS was taken over by the same company that runs Richer Sounds, and they were designed by Robin Marshall, who also designed and built the fantastic Epos range of speakers.

There are loads of innovative things which help the speaker sound as good as it does - the bass drivers are moulded into the front panel which is secured to the back panel by steel rods for rigidity, the crossovers are as simple as the drivers were designed to need little filtering, and the drivers were custom-designed and made by MS - so no off-the-shelf items.

The result is a very transparent speaker with great soundstaging, huge detail and great air around instruments, a very clean (but not shrill) top end and a very tight, although not huge, bottom end.

I believe these were around £250 when they were new in the mid 90s, which translates to about £400 in todays money.

I've listened to mine with everything from a £30 chinese T-amp to a £3500 Naim Pre/Power and they have performed beautifully. They don't have the bass of something like a Monitor Audio RS6, but I believe they are truer to what actual instruments sound like.

So to if you want your drum