Building the Audio Note Kit 1 SET amp...

Mikirob,
Understood. Short of an unexpected windfall, my budget will not be $3000 and up. ;-)
And again, thanks for all the cutting and pasting.

Tubegoover,
You may be right. I can only pass along what he told me in an email. I asked him if there was a home trial, or if he had any TE customers in my neck of the woods whose TE's I might audition, but he did not.
That said, only he knows what his profit margins need to be to keep the business afloat.
I will say that Israel was a pleasure to talk to and seemed very knowledgable about speaker design. I just don't see myself buying a $3K pair of monitors sight unseen/unheard. I'm thinking that if I do decide to replace the De Capo's, it's going to have to be from someone like Omega or Tekton that offers a home trial. Zu, by the way, also offers a home trial, but something about their aggressive, hipster/lifestyle marketing puts me off. Maybe that's silly snobbery on my part, but there you go.
Of course, the wildcard would be some fantastic deal on used gear coming along. You never know.

Rebbi,
There is a Zu vs. Tekton thread on the Audiogon. It was a couple years ago and was very good, a lot of posts pro/con back and forth. If I can summerize it overwhelmingly came out in favor of Tekton. The Zu's apple to apple cost much, much more. Do yourself a favor and look it up. I believe it started by a fellow named gpowered. Many A-gon regulars posted.

Right, I have seen that one. I may go back and take another look. It's huge, as I remember!

Mikirob, like you, I also detected some mission drift occurring. That is the nature of audiophiles. This is what I want, wow, this is great, now how do I make it better? Rebbi is doing what we all do when we make that first step from midfi to the good stuff. God bless him and keep him. I have felt your your pain, Rebbi!

This is exactly why I backed off from the "mission" for a while. There is no perfect system at any price. We all have to come to terms with what we value most, and what we are willing to do without. That period of introspection is mandatory for Rebbi at this point, I think.