I went to a local dealer and audition both new Beethoven Grand and the older model yesterday.
I actually prefer to older Beethoven because it is more laid back and they play classical music better to my ears. I found that they sound equally smooth and refined, but Beethoven grand sounds more forward and there is more immediacy.
On top of that, my local dealer is clearing out an pair of older Beethoven demo at almost half the price of Beethoven Grand. And it's the awesome rosewood finish.
After listening for about an hour with different CDs, I was completely convinced and decided to buy. I had auditioned JMLab (Mini Utopia), ProAc, B&W (80x amd 70x), Dynaudio (Contour and C4), and Sonus Faber (Cremona & Grand Piano) before. They do not belong to the same price range but almost all of them are more expensive than Beethoven (old model). Yet I found Beethoven outperforms (sonically) most of them to my personal taste.
I will post update later how they mate with my CJ power amp.
PS: Maxxc, I did not jump on a $5000 pair of speaker. =) It's actually less than half of it.