New Speakers under consideration - but I’m afraid

I'm running a pair of Thiel CS6 speakers with a Krell KSA 300S amp. They were about $9000 in the mid 90's. I've been to 3 audio shows and I've found that my system holds up to pretty much anything costing under 6 figures. I've heard speakers that do one thing or another better than my Thiels but I haven't heard anything that would blow them away until the price gets into the stratosphere. A good example of a speaker that is clearly above what I own is the MBL 101E MkII. They are around $90K but if you get a chance you should hear them to see what is possible.

If you can swing it I would recommend going to an audio show to get a broad overview of what is available. The Capital Audio Fest is coming up in November and it would be an excellent way to hear what's available and narrow down the choices.

The speakers that have impressed me the most are from Rockport, Rosso Fiorentino, Dynaudio, Joseph Audio, Sonus Faber, and Paradigm but that's just my taste. These were all speakers under $50k.

About the fear...... If you spend tens of thousands of dollars on new speakers I'm pretty sure you will like them just fine. At least you're not twitterpating about cables.

Jay's Iyagi Review of Arendal 1723 THX

These certainly look intriguing

The older b&w speakers were really nice and filled the room very comfortably. Older speakers have value if they’re in good condition and it sounds like you’ve done some things to yours thank you so much to make them really nice.

New speakers are different these days and require absolute perfection with all the components. I have older b&w speakers and they are comfortable to listen to.

I don’t like all these new creations that seem to say you’ve gotta do all this stuff to make sure they reach their full potential. Thats not how it should be.

The industry is changing and it’s quite impractical for anyone to listen to many speakers. It’s unfortunate they require dealers to buy the speakers before they sell them. The whole means of distributing nice speakers is problematic.

My guess is OP was meaning "worried" but somehow ended up with "afraid".

@ritter06 , yes, worry is always on the back of mind, however much auditioning/research you have done. It took me 2.5 years and 2 AXPONA shows to finalize my current speakers. So, don't worry - and as others have suggested, try to listen to as many loudspeakers as you can, read up, reach out to folks (not reviewers) who own the speakers you might be leaning towards, etc and you should be good. Have fun during auditioning.

And the most important thing - even if you purchase the world's best speakers there will ALWAYS be people who would say, you should have gone with X rather than Y. Learn to ignore such comments and you should be happy with the new loudspeakers for another 25-30 years. Good luck.