Cost no Object but Small Room

Check out the Tetra stuff, maybe 506, 406, etc. www.tetraspeakers.com. These are somehow a bit different than most other box speakers... They have a different feel. These are fairly popular with musicians - they cerainly aren't studio monitors, but are sort of the 50/50 blend of 'the high end' with professional recording requirements - which have much better nearfield listening characteristics and overall are more accurate to the recording, sometimes to a slight fault where other epeakers we might be more used to are colored in a way that perhaps improves bad/flawed recordings.

The main thing here is that they certianly hold their own versus similarly prices 'high end' speakers and have really incredible nearfield response (not always a goal for high end speakers), so could be perfect.

You really must treat the room, otherwise you will never get the best performance from any speaker that lives in it.
The smaller the room, the more it needs to be treated.
Take some of the money you plan on spending on speakers and buy some bass traps for the corners and RFZ panels for the 1st reflection points. This is money well spent and you will not regret it. Take a look at Real Traps and budget about $4k if you are serious about getting a good sounding room, regardless of speaker choice.

Frank ....most definitely. I am currently constructing the room to reflect this, real traps, corner taps etc.

Lightminer: yes indeed...i saw similiar comments from reviews...nice to hear a fellow audiogoner to confirm. will check them out!

The V3 was setup to a pure Zanden system, the 90 watt monoblock push-pull 845 amps, the preamp, and the transport/dac signature combo. I did not check the wires, but I did notice the Nordost speaker wire. They were in a large room about 8 feet up from the back wall. I do not know the room measurements.

Detail was there, bass was there, but I was not able to critically listen because I did not have my own CDs. I was just getting a casual sense for them. But I heard all I needed, they didn't do much for me.

I was disappointed in the Zanden monoblocks. But then again, different system completely and setup in the dealer may have been less than optimal.

I went into a much smaller room (about half the size of the last) where the Minis were playing, driven by Burmester gear with a Metronome CD player. I think the amp was about 280 watts per channel.

Now I can see why these speakers are getting attention, tremendous detail, and coherency that is in a whole other league from the V3.

The Burmester gear I've heard before, good, but not my cup of tea. I would love to hear the Mini on a high power tube amp of some kind. They do require lots of power from what Mr. Wolf replied to me, when I asked about my ML2s. He said they would be fine with the V3, not the Mini.

Thanks James. I listened to the Minis a cple of times and really liked them but concerned my Darts will not be enuff for them...and don't want to chg my amps again. A fellow goner did say he has such a set up (Dart-Mini) and said the match was very good, so a bit confused actually. Over here, they don;t allow home auditions so I wld have to drag my amp to the dealership...yuk. The Minis at the dealership were driven by Spectral and Audio Rsch 210s, the latter sounding particularly good w/ the Minis.