Warm romantic & detailed


Good morning Gentlemen & ladies... 

I'm just starting to toy with idea of replacing my Focal 1038's... No matter how I treat my room, or what equipment I throw at it I just can't seem to tame the harsh highs on this speaker. 

I'd like to stay in the same price range of the Electra's (7/8k), I don't mind buying used, the musts for me at this point are: Warm, romantic, yet detailed... It would be beautiful to just sit and listen and not have ear fatigue after 15 minutes of listening. 

Can you please recommend something? 
jeffinnh76
There are too many reply’s to check for any Von Schweikert recommendations. I had the same problem with the top end, and went through a couple of different speakers before I found my Von Schweikert VR 33’s.  Their sound is big, full, lush and romantic. Broad sound stage and good bass. Nice highs and no listening fatigue. They have quite a few different models, and cover the gamut price wise. My VR33’s were at the bottom of their price range at $3700, but have the quintessential Von Schweikert sound. Price wise they go up from there. 
I do not think the Focal tweeter is repairable (in the way that it sounds, ha). That is the Focal house sound I have found over many, many years of hearing them. Great demo speakers. You either love it or try to get used to it.
Changing electronics to modify speaker sound when the basic sound is offensive won't work, imo. Neither will DSP. It's the house sound; love it or leave it.
There were great speakers mentioned and having owned Scansonic MB2.5s for a couple years along with Dynaudio Sapphires, I will say that the Borresen designed, sealed ribbon tweeter bested the Esotar II in sonic purity and wonderful clarity, never-ever harsh.
Joseph Audio are wonderful and pure of tone. Sonus Faber may be something well worth auditioning and I've heard many Spendors and Harbeths at shows that were superb loudspeakers and not harsh.
I'd be looking at nice models with ribbons, sealed, folded, etc, and Heil Motion type tweeters for clarity without stridency. I may be forgetting other types. But if a dome, I want silk.  (B&W Diamonds fry my ears!)  Good luck.
I have to second the Von Schweikert recommendation if they've only gotten better. The ones I heard in Denver years back ALL sounded very inviting but were out my my league then.
Oh, a last thought for now; I owned and loved my first good speaker, Martin Logan SL3s (1995) for sixteen years but for a few months the Threshold T200 (superb amp, paired correctly) cut my listening to 15-20 minutes at best. It wasn't the speaker; a better match was heaven.
Speaker so inherently bright as to be aurally fatiguing are simply not pleasurable any longer for me. I don't listen to be in pain. And if they force you to stop listening you've lost your hobby. It has to feel good, right?

When Dynaudio Sapphires replaced the SL3s as main audio speakers my thought process included finding a speaker where I would want to turn it up and not down. Part of that meant a clean smooth treble. The Esotar II worked as fabled, very nicely.


I wanted to thank each and every one of you for the great advice. I've learned so much through this thread, and my knowledge of different brands etc etc is 10 fold what it was. 

With that said my journey has finally come to an end. I pulled the trigger on a beautiful pair of Harbeth 40.2 anniversaries.

Thank you you all.