Mcintosh xrt20 or Gallo 3.1??

Wow, two radically different designs, apples and oranges to compare really.

Never heard these particular Mcs, but the line arrays in the Mc's would lend themselves better to listening from more of a distance in a larger room I would expect.

The Gallo's (which I have heard) are smaller and will provide a radically different presenatation from those Mcs I would think, in particular listening from more of a distance again in a larger room.

The Mc speakers I have heard are OK but nothing spectacular. The Gallo's in general are regarded more as overachiever's in their price range.

The Macs were extremely expensive, huge and only decent sounding. Even if price were not an issue, the Gallos are still much more musical.
One could call the Gallos ugly or retro or interesting... but no one could call the macs anything more than ugly and old school looking. Mac was never able to compete with speakers-this should tell you something. You'll never resell them either due to shipping.

http://www.roundsound.com/reference-5-ls-speakers.html

This is what I'd be auditioning if I was interested in buying a new pair of line sources.

Right Dan, because those are close to the price range of the others ha. I love the Gallo's, but every once in a while I miss the big full boomy sound of the old school speakers. Maybe I should just buy the sub amp that I have been resisting. Then again, might be smarter to save my dang money in this economy.

Yeah, it might be. I just got a call from my best friend - he got laid off today.

Definitely a sub amp/woofer would get you the boom effect. Have you tried different placements? I took me a quite a while to get my Ref 3.1s situated in a place where I was happy with them.