UPDATE
I made my decision, drank the BBC Kool aid, and purchased the Harbeth 40.2 Annie’s, all in with the TonTrager stands.
At the proverbial end of the day, for me, I just really felt such an emotional soothing connection when demo’img it with my records that I didn’t get from most of the others. Very musical, warm, engaging and so natural sounding, the 3 drivers really do come off sounding like one big driver they are so seamless. Voices are the best I heard and the bass is very musical, not that one note blurr. No shrill at loud volumes, non-fatiguing and not analytical which I internally associate with being cold. Heavy metal not my thing but for soft rock, folk, blues, jazz where the vocals are front and center its smooth as silk.
On the downside, to my eyes they are not aesthetically pleasing as speakers are designed these days,, and not anything I would have thought of getting but they are seriously HUMONGOUS in person, these are not satellite speakers as I tend to think of that design. And they definitely don’t image as well as the other floorstanders, so that was major compromise for me, but close your eyes its not such a big deal.
Well all adventures must come to an end. I learned a lot and it was a fun but an overwhelming 2 months.
And a huge thanks to the key peeps who reached out on this forum and guided me along, keeping me straight -- I tend to be impulsive which is not a healthy trait in this hobby. Will see how things go, but at least I made some new friends.
And of course I’ll leave the door open in the sense that if I can demo future speakers in my room against the Harbeths I certainly will. But for the near term I’ll let contentment settle in....
