Tobb: While I agree with you that you ultimately will not know what an active speaker truly sounds like until it is dialed into the room that is to be its home, I do not agree that if you hear something in a demo environment (where the speaker is properly dialed in) that it is 'utter nonsense'.
The same point can be made for any speaker or for any component for that matter in that you never truly know what a pair of passive speakers would do either until you get them into the room where they will live and hear them properly setup and broken in with the full list of components, cables, power, etc...that will drive them.
Good multi-hour, well thought out and personal source-material driven, demo listening sessions serve a certain amount of good in that you know if the speaker MAY be one that you would like but its impractical to think that we should skip these experiences (not what you said above, I realize....) as they would be useless in terms of time, effort and what we hear.
Having sat through the dialing in sessions on Aeris and Whisper several times with Legacy and helping friends dial in a pair of Whispers and Helix, I definitely agree that a great calibration and dialing-in session with the new processor does wonders and can make these speakers sound great in any room!
Thanks for all the info on the pair of speakers you are selling and your experiences in the more general sense. Can you send me an Audiogon in-mail with a phone number where I can contact you? Thanks!