Salk Audio Sound

Should have also said that the wait for Jim to build them was worth it. 

Perhaps Jim will let you have the demo pair of the Song3 BeAT which
he graciously loaned us for the SpeakerFest our club put on in June.
Retail is about $5,990. They were beautiful looking. I liked the sound
a lot personally. As Roxy mentioned, the ATC 40s were the overall crowd favorite at $7,000 or about $1,000 over the Salk model we had. 
I would agree with Jim's point about the Salks being more forgiving
of lesser recordings. The ATCs became unlistenable when a lesser recording was played. The ATC rep chose his own music too.

My dream is to be able to buy a pair of SALK Song3 Encores.  They are incredible.  They sounded better than a pair of $60,000 speakers I heard at RMAF.

Jim SALK is also incredibly nice and extremely knowledgeable.

The Encores use a larger diameter of the same Satori woofer, and a different midrange; they plumb the depths further, but I preferred the Audio Technology mid-range on the BeATs.  Interesting that in the SS 9.5 he uses the tweeter and midrange from the BeATs, the woofer from the Encore, plus some passive radiators.

Agree with above posters on the Song3 BeATs being forgiving of bad recordings but still very resolving. They are great sounding speakers and the build quality is amazing.