Hi @char1 - I wound up buying both the Silverlines and Audiovectors. :) They are quite different but both extremely capable. My wife, an oboist, prefers the Silverlines over pretty much anything else she's heard, and for acoustic music I don't disagree with her. The Audiovectors have that amazing tweeter and nearly coloration-free cabinet that make them bracingly clean and incisive, and they play loud like you wouldn't believe, but don't have the body of the SR17. I'm happy to live with either of them but the Silverline is quite a bit easier to position and match to amp/cables whereas the Audiovector is very exacting. The Audiovector does very well close to the back wall though, handy in small rooms. The SR17 is more organic and holographic, with a bigger sound.
One thing I've heard a former SR17 owner not like about them is the cabinet isn't super rigid and well-brace and tends to resonate at high volume, causing some thickening/blurring vs. the Audiovector or in his case an ATC. I don't disagree with this assessment and if you listen to, say, rock or other heavier music at high volumes it might bother you - I prefer the Audiovector for that. For classical and some jazz I think it's less of an issue, and I admit the bit of woody warmth it adds to the lower midrange is quite consonant with a lot of music.
