Warm romantic & detailed

Some very good and very bad suggestions above. I can't do the Focal
Berries or Magico Diamonds either. Forget ATC. Salk also uses Berries.
Spend the next year or so listening to the British and Italian and Spatial selections above which fit your budget-Which I never quite saw but am guessing is $3-$4k. That is enough to get you excellent sound used. 
Please let us all know what you decide.

I'll second the Tannoy recomendation. Warm, romantic, and involving sound. They look beautiful to boot. 

The ribbon tweeter in the Proac K-series is beautifully smooth. The speaker is also an impressive all-rounder. Works with rock well too. I home demoed the K-6 and was very very tempted. 

The Avalon Ideal is also a wonderful speaker, rich and non-fatiguing. I home demoed this and I very nearly kept it.

I suffer from hyperacusis, which is a sensitivity to loud noises at certain frequencies, and for me it is triggered my harsh trebles so I am fully understanding of your issue with the Focal - I find Focal’s trigger my hyperacusis whenever I hear them at shows.

Having heard many of the ones recommended I would add that the Sonas Faber I home demoed (top of the range Guaneri tradition) whilst the best I have heard for classical and jazz, was not so good with rock, too smooth. Similarly Harbeth and Spendor are great speakers but like many British speakers, strong detail and a sense of driving rhythm is not one of their most potent characteristics, and if this is important to you then you may be disappointed.

I ended up with a Boenicke speaker which is an extraordinary speaker but may not be so widely available in the US.

Thank you for all your recommendations...

Prior to my Mcintosh C2600 / 452 I was a very happy Parasound JC2 / A21 owner. I found my A21 at loud volumes to clip /distort the Focal's in the midrange at high volumes. I then in-home demonstrated the JC1, Gato (class D), and some cables, new DACS...

My thought process was regarding the brightness: try a tube / solid state combo to add some warmth. That did help, or so I thought. I've spent days upon days playing around with room treatment etc etc. 

This speaker is just extremely detailed / bright, and it's very exhausting to hear.

I'm really interested in the Harbeth / Spendors mentioned, but going from so much detail to the other spectrum has me concerned. 

It should. That is why you have to be careful and listen. People will tell you that you can not listen in dealers. Sure you can. It is never optimal but I have always been able to get enough out of it to tell if I'll like the speaker or not, when I do it. I will only listen to line source dipoles which limits the market severely. But you are looking at point source dynamic loudspeakers of which there are a million. It only takes +- 1-2 dB here and there to make a speaker sound totally obnoxious. There is also a tendency for manufacturers to make "audiophile speakers" instead of neutral ones. These impress initially but get tiring. 
I can tell you what I like but I can't tell you what you like. With what you have to spend it would be a no brainer for me. I would go with Magnepan 3.7i's but maybe you don't like the look or don't have the room. I currently do not have Magnepans and have no intention of buying them in the future. But, as far as the realistic reproduction of music is concerned, in the price range you are looking in they are a cut above any box speaker I have ever heard. 
If you want absolute assurance you can get the sound you want out of a dynamix box speaker get a digital preamp like the DEQX, the Anthem STR or the Trinnov Amethyst. Then you can adjust the frequency response of the speakers any way you want without any distortion, none.
It will also help you deal with room interactions to a degree and adding a subwoofer down the line is a since because all three have digital bass management. Actually, you might even be able to adjust your Focals so you like them! All three units use impulse measurement and will show you a graph of the your systems frequency response. They will automatically generate correction filters which will get you to perfectly flat.
If that does not do the trick you can generate target curves to make the system do what you like. If you want to see how this works look at my system page. I give screenshots of all of this.