I heard them at the dealer's. Trust me, I wanted to like them as I've always heard good things about Rockports and wanted to hear for myself. I would have preferred to listen to the Arrakis or the Altair, but they only had the Aquila set up. The demo room wasn't big, perhaps a tad less than 300 sq.ft., and the speakers were spaced out around 8 feet apart and around 10 feet from the back wall. Sources included the Clearaudio Statement turntable and a high-end $10K CD player which I forget the make. As for the amps, they might have been Gryphon, though I'm not completely sure. What I remember was that they were 400W Class A monoblocks. This was a dealer that sold exclusively Rockport speakers so I don't think components were an issue.
Have you actually heard the Aquila yourself? If your listening experiences are referring to the Mira, that's an altogether different speaker than the Aquila. From my experience, it's generally not advisable to lump a manufacturer's whole line of speakers together, such as "Rockports sound...". Then again, I haven't heard the Mira, but then with them being priced a third of the Aquila, it would be surprising if they outperformed them.
Have you actually heard the Aquila yourself? If your listening experiences are referring to the Mira, that's an altogether different speaker than the Aquila. From my experience, it's generally not advisable to lump a manufacturer's whole line of speakers together, such as "Rockports sound...". Then again, I haven't heard the Mira, but then with them being priced a third of the Aquila, it would be surprising if they outperformed them.