Laid Back Speakers amps, players etc

Classe30, I too am using the Arcam FMJ CD 36 , great player. . I currently have Sonus Faber Grand Piano Home and a James EMB sub and get some fantastic sound but the speakers do have some bite to them at times...somewhere in the low highs like with high pitched voices and the dang snare drum on some recordings.... My plaster walls don't help either..
I am using a BelCanto Evo 2i Gen 2 integrated. Other speakers didn't quite sound so hard in the low highs so I do believe it is the speakers. great detail and bass though.

Thanks for the sudgestions everyone....

Shoe, yes it is, I am very happy with it and it sounds like you have a really nice system.
Spendor, Harbeth would be something you might want to look into. Plus with the Sub you have you needn't worry about the bass response.
With the Spendor you may... not 100% sure.... sacrafice some detail with your current SF GP's. I have minimal experience with Harbeth, but they sounded awesome when I heard them at a dealer in Sarasota Fl.
I am sure you will see my S6e's on sale within the next couple of months. Nice speaker, but I would like a change a bit in the other direction.

Where are you located at?

Eweedhome, I should clarify that I do not regard a laid back presentation as a coloration, rather it is a lack of artificial coloration such that you can easily listen to it all day and night and you always want to play it some more.

Some speakers: Audiokinesis, Classic Audio Reproductions, Sound Lab, Quad, Ocellia, Tonian Labs, Coincident Technology, High Emotion Audio, Tannoy, JM Labs, Vandersteen, Audio Mechanica, Avalon, to name a few.

Atmasphere - agree that "laid back" is not necessarily a coloration, although some would say it is, which gets back to the argument that more detail must therefore = more accuracy, which is silly, but whatever...

I respectfully dissent as to the characterization of Avalons (at least the most recent incarnation of the Ascendants) as "laid back." I'd call them "fun", but also leaning in the "too much information" catagory.

I'm inclined to put the Vandersteens in that catagory as well, but I admit that it really depends upon how you run them. They don't have the magic midrange of the Harbeths, however, and I've fallen for that, so I'm not the most objective, perhaps.

Shoe, I auditioned the Sonus Faber Cremonas and whatever the monitors were called, and noticed the same edge or bite that you describe. For that reason, I didn't buy them. I heard some very recently, however, that sounded more relaxed, and was told that the tweeters are new. Don't know much about them, though.