Hello Aceto. Gotta like your dilema.Your wife obviously has a pair of very good ears! You didn't mention any thing about your amplification.Most of the bigger planars and e-stats require some very healthy amplification which would obviously impact on your decision to be sure, not to mention your concern with your room dimensions .Take note of Tireguy's very imformative post as well as the Dukes.It is imperative that you give any planar type speaker the room to breath, meaning well away from the back wall! You will have to experiment with what will work best regarding distances from the side walls as well as your listening seat in relation to the back wall. The listening seat must "not" be up against the back wall[very important!]I am in the Soundlab camp as far as the elotrostatics are concerned... however I have not heard the new Quad 989.I have owned and played with many planars types since the early 1970's, from the Quad 57's,stacked 57's, Dayton Wright's, acoustat x,acoustat 2+2's,magnaplanar tympani 1V's,Quad 63's, and soundlab A-1's.The soundlabs A-1's are without any doubt the finest "full range" electrostatic speaker I have ever heard or had the pleasure of owning...that said,they also require a rather large room and some very powerful amplification to energize them.I prefer tube amplification with all e-stats... The soundlabs as well as the big maggies need gobs of tube power which can obviously be rather expensive. In my case...I experimented with a ton of different amps and found[to my dismay]that only the big atma-shere OTL's would fit the bill! I am sure there are a "handful" of others out there as well.You can certainly drive the Quads with far less power.It appears that you like to have the ability to be able pressurize the room with some extended bass response.The sound labs can do that. With most of the other E-stats, you may or may not have that luxury, and keep in mind it is extremely difficult to mate an electrostatic with a subwoofer[s].I am not suggesting it is impossible to accomplish,just very very difficult to get it to sound coherent... given the purity,speed,and resolution that e-stats are noted for! Most of the current E-stats I have heard that incorporate a woofer just don't quite cut it for me and seem to be a comprimize the beauty of the stator!To get it right.. you would certainly need a very good sub and a "top shelf" crossover. The crossover is extremely critical here and would certainly be very expensive as well! I am getting a little carried away here gang.. I apologize. Anyway...gotta like your dilema here.Good Luck with your journey. The world would be a sad place indeed without music! Cheers David.
