Replacing Forests???

To me, when the Forests were working well, they would still be my personal speaker of choice of the 3. Just my personal opinion though.

Jh2os. I cannot blame you for having a "grin from ear to ear" standard. You achieved that level of sonic bliss once, and you have the darn gone right to achieve it again. I guess the rub is what kinda combo of gear is gonnna get you there. I dunno. From a selfish perspective, your lack of true sonic bliss is of interest to me since I have Hawks coming and have the same source and amp and even a similarly sized room (but my immediate listening area is smaller; typical apartment set-up). But then again, you are comparing your new set-up to something very different from what I have (small room, arro + primaluna + cairn).

I think something's gonna have to give: You will either have to give it more time, compromise your standard for being sonically content, or as many do, sell and buy something different. Only you can determine what you need to get back that thar grin, and I hope you do. Perhaps the subwoofer suggestion made above by the other posters would be one option (but I know you said you don't want to do that; nor I). Perhaps the other option is try the Forest again (very ironic given the title of this thread), but I can surely understand your hesitancy there cos you replaced it 3x. For me, if I were fed up with a particular product, I'd surely steer clear of the entire line (the "brand"), and you have not, so if you are comfy with the Sttafs and Hawks, it seems that you should also be comfy trying out yet another pair of Forests...

But maybe there's another speaker that you need? Something more sensitive and easier to drive for your big room so you can get that big sound? Maybe some of the smaller names that are frequently mentioned here like Tyler or Reimer? Food for thought.

I wish I could give you the silver bullet...

Jh20s,

I am not sure whether you auditioned Sonus Faber line. I liked totem's sound so much. But my opinio changed when I auditioned Sonus Faber GP Domus and Cremona Auditor. I like both of them a lot too. That is what I am in a stalemate and trying to decide between Totem Forests, Hawks and SF Cremona Auditors and Grand Piano Domus. May be you can audition SF line and see

Grakesh

Sonus Faber Domus Piano and further up the line is VERY nice speakers. I demo'd them against VS VR4-JR, Dali 400, Spendor S8e, Vandersteen 3a sigs, ELAC, Legacy

The Sonus Faber Grand Piano Home were a contender for me back in the day. I did enjoy their sound. I also listened to the Dali MS5's recently which were brilliant, but in a whole other price class. Quite possibly, I simply may need to start back at square one? Walkman might be right about something more sensitive and easier to drive???

I went over to Tweeter (i know) the other night, because they had the Sonus before. They stopped carrying them, but they did have the JMLab Profile there paired with a Krell SACD standard and kav400xi. I was surprised to see gear of that caliber in a Tweeter? They also had ML's (but those have never been my flavor). I listened breifly to the Krell/Profile system and it sounded pretty sweet. Hard to get a good demo in a Tweeter though, with all those bigscreens mumbling in the background. Plus, I knew more about the pieces than the salesman did. Go figure! ;)