Would you Upgrade?

You have to know what makes sound good.  If you don't understand what component in your system makes the sound they way it is, you basically are just trading one type of sound for another.  Brightness comes more from your components than the speaker.  IMO the speaker just passes along what it is feed. Sure some designs are more open, some are faster sounding, some have deeper bass.  You need to decide what you like and bring along the music to demo the speakers.  I use piano as a go to.  If the piano sounds bad the rest to me never falls into place.  Then I go from there.

Listen with your ears and if you like them better, then buy them.

Happy Listening.

  

The listening room is so important in system synergy that buying without a home demo is like throwing darts blindfolded, not impossible for the experts but potluck for the rest of us. Focal speakers I've home demoed had huge mid bass peaks with no bass below 80 hz in room. maybe the way they port their speakers doesn't jive with my room idk, but I love their mid and upper fq reproduction.

I always want to hear how well a speaker upscales.  Then I need to hear how it sounds with my own gear.  One place that needs to be looked at is your room and your set up.  Those are two areas that can be inexpensive to tighten up as long as you are able to (family can mess that up at times).  

I have liked and owned JMLab Micro's (their original company that was started in '77 (Thiel and Vandersteen were also 77 and 78).  What an era, but I digress.  I too have found their bass lacking in some of their models in the range you are probably looking at.  

Dealers can sit here and tell you to listen to something they sell instead of what you are asking and that's fine. They are partly correct.  You should get out and listen to as many speakers as you can in your price range. Then go another step up in price and see how much different they sound.  Try to bring your source with you if you can and have them use similar components.  Your ears will tell you IF it's time to upgrade and what direction to go.  

There are a ton of great options and since we all hear differently, you need to figure out what is truly missing with what you own and what do you NOT want in a speaker. That is a different way to looking at things, but I've found that we dont' always know what sounds right until we hear it, but we do know what compromises we won't be able to live with.

As a Focal first generation BE owner, I’d have to say it’s something of a sideways move. The Focal Beryllium tweeter is arguably more exciting & dynamic perhaps with a lower distortion midrange but not really enough of either to especially warrant a change. The D3 does give you significant improvements in the tweeter & midrange so that needs to be considered at least as strongly. The Esoteric electronics certainly have a different character to your Classe, muddling up the quantifiable differences you heard by a fair amount.

2 & 1/2 suggestions for you to consider. The D3 B&W’s will give you clear improvements. Everything you like about your tweeter is obviously enhanced (done in the D2 series) & the continuum material dramatically decreases break up distortion in the midrange. Here’s an interesting approach that allows you to completely remove that distortion (as opposed to reducing it) B&W (& reviewers dependent on their advertising) fail to mention. The butyl rubber surround on the 805D3 does that & arguably makes far better use of the newest continuum midrange material. As for the elaborate B&W bass, you’re used to - that can be maintained or improved by the use of one or preferably a pair of their subwoofers. Nothing’s not appreciably & noticeably improved by going this route. At first, the idea may sound counterintuitive but hearing is believing.

The second suggestion is the one midrange driver that is appreciably better then either of the above are ceramic ones. I don’t have a particular speaker in mind but auditioning some with tweeters of the quality you’re used to will definitely tell the tale.

I’m presuming you want a dynamic speaker & not stats. Auditioning some higher-end Martin Logans could easily give you some interesting reference points to hear a very different sound (quite superior in some but not all aspects) that may modify your thinking - or at least meanigfully clarify it.

MY 1st hi-end speaker was a B&W 801 matrix (series-3) on sound-anchor stands. I also heard the 802's and they sounded fantastic on Bruckner #9- not an easy task. You have 802-diamonds which are even better as long as they're properly anchored to the floor.  There are still better loudspeakers out there but- be careful in your search in order that "better" will be affordable and easy to drive. Upgrading to a night-and-day speaker will force you to look hard at all of your gear and can you afford the change. If not then plan on being patient and spreading your upgrades over a period of time. It's hard (for me) to go from something that's already very good to an OMG! component unless I can learn to be patient afterwards and wait for some great deals on "lightly-used" premium components to come available.