B&W 801 s 3 or????

As an 801 S2 owner for about 6 months now, I am having a hard time replacing mine. Ive been all over the map in 24 years from Planers, E-stats, boxes big and small. But the 801's do many things well and are not too offensive to my ears. Ive slowly built my system the last few months around the speakers for sure. Going to a Plinius SA250 amp the biggest difference from the SA100. Upgraded pre amps to LS25 and Bi-wired the woofs with Analysis Plus Oval 9's.Ridge Street Poiema!'s on top. Sand filled and spiked stands are a must. Ive even used a small amount of Dacron Fiberfill lined in the port. All with notable improvements along the way. They are sounding the best Ive' heard them and better than any dealer show room when I first heard them back in 1991. Yet, There is a self effacing quality and the I feel I have attained the best I can reasonably expect in my room with my equipment thus far with them. Now, they do sound very good, but the limitations of the 801's become more apparent as you show them better quality front end equip. I think the limitations of the design are fairly well documented over the years. Easy to listen to, but lacking in state of the art resolution and low level detail. A cross over that is far and away nowhere near what is out there some 13 years later in quality parts, and a port that needs a better box design and cross over points to work so that the bass doesn't "bloom" to excess. Attack could be better and they are not the most dynamic and require tons of current to get going, but dont have the breaks to stop cleanly. Yet, I do like them ! Lovely mids and smooth highs in the TS26 tweeter. The Nautilus Tweet is cleaner and detailed, but the Matrix TS26 non fatiguing and smooth .I had a fellow member over this evening who thought they were smooth also and had excellent imaging and a great big soundstage( a lot to do with assoc. equip and cables to be sure) and a room big enough to support the B&W's. We both agreed though it's time to move on, and so I will be looking this week to replace them. Ill say this...It's hard to get a speaker that does so much right if properly driven and set up in room for what you pay for them used. For about 1.5-1.9K someone is going to get a pretty good speaker!

Oldpet- In my case I am looking at the Usher line. The price/performance seems very good. A buddy has heard the 8871's are were excellent although not fully broken in when he heard them, his feeling was they sounded much better than their price(which is not cheap) and competed with speakers costing alot more. I am thinking of trying the 6381's as I think they'd be better suited for my moderate size 19x23 room. Ill let you know if I get them and what I think._Ken

Thanks for some of the ideas.
Audiobugged...Where did you hear your Talons?
Steveaudio...I'm not giving up yet, but I don't think the amp is the problem. The 400cx has plenty of juice.
French_fries....Huh?...Are you saying the upstream electronics are bad?
Any one know how the Tyler Acoustics line up compares?

Kehut, sounds like you've been pondering this for a while. Thanks for the info. I've never heard of the Usher line of speakers. I'd love to know what you think of them.

Yes, I actually came across my pair of 801's as they were my Dads. It was quite unexpected actually. They replaced a pair of VonSchweikert VR2's which were good sounding after breaking in..but just too forward for my tastes and not quite dynamic enough as I felt they compressed the highs more than I liked when pushed. So, Iv'e made the most of the 801's since Iv'e aquired them. Usher Audio has quite a line up of some interesting speakers and they were very well regarded at the CES show this year. Everyone I spoke with who has them just loves them. Ill keep you updated.
www.usheraudio.com