Stereo, have you auditioned the Vandersteen Treo CT's yet? If not, it's probably worth it since you are in that 8k price range already. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by all they can do at this price point. I have two friends I met on the boards who were looking in this range and auditioned the GE, DR, PSB, Paradigm, Dynaudio, used Wilson Sasha's and Maggies.
They went together to listen most of the time and they said that the Vandersteen's each time were the most enjoyable. They would sit and listen to music for hours at the store and not even get into their audiophile recordings. Honestly, that's the biggest reason I switched from Proac's. I was a free agent. I had no dealer with allegiance and no designers I felt I need to purchase from. I didn't even want to listen to the Vandersteen's, but Rutan at Audio Connection made me listen to the Treo's.
I went there to listen to Proac D series floor standers. They weren't in the same league and the set up was just ok as it was in the front of the store not far from the door.
From top to bottom they got the music right and they were open and threw a big sound stage and were so dynamic at all listen levels. Even my brother and father who were with me and known nothing about audio, said that the auditions were even close. He had the B&W and PSB's out that we heard also. The Maggies din't move enough air for rock and on bad rock recordings they were ruthless and hurt my ears. The Vandersteen's seemed just as fast and there was no smearing of notes.
Why the Quatro's over the Treo's? Because of the built in bass amp and eq. I have a loft that has a partially open wall down into the larger living area. The Treo gave me great bass from among to tunefulness. That said, the Quatro is in a different category for bass. It's what I've always wanted and we all know that real bass is expensive. I've found that to my ear the GE bass isn't of the same quality as the Vandersteen's. It will give you a lot of air movement and is better than many other speakers at or even above it's price. I'm liked Sandy's speakers in the past and I do like his newer speakers, but for me, Vandersteen was just more accurate and musical. I'm not the biggest fan of the ribbon tweeters either. They can be very rough on top at times. The new Proacs are done well, the newest Legacy's are nice (I can't listen to their older ones) and the GE's are also nice, but I personally feel that carbon tweeter that Richard's using in the Treo on up is the best sounding tweeter on the market. It's sweet without the syrup. It's just tonally accurate and thats what he was going for.
Again, this is all just MY opinion. Not putting down any other speaker as we listen differently and hear different things.
