Considering a POSSIBLE replacement for speakers. Opinions?

I’m not one to make recommendations blindly, but I’d highly recommend you do an in-home trial of the LSA-20 Signatures available here from the manufacturer for $2299/pr.  You have pretty darn good speakers already IMHO so won’t be easy to significantly beat without a decent cost outlay, but as the LSAs are sold direct they offer extraordinary value and perform way above their price point (read reviews), and I do believe they’ll significantly better your RS8s in pretty much every meaningful way.  Several people here have bought these on my recommendation and have all been surprised and thrilled with how good they sound, and nobody returned them.  BTW, I have no relation to Underwood HiFi (manufacturer/seller), just a big fan of who designed them and how they were designed from the ground up.  Plus, and as you obviously know it’s hard to demo good speakers these days so the in-home trial is a very nice feature of the LSA speakers.  Hope this helps, and best of luck. 

Hello j,

     I doubt you'll be able to identify a single consensus pick from the posts you're likely to be receiving on your thread.  More likely, you'll receive recommendations of a wide variety of speaker brands and models in a wide spectrum of prices.  It would be helpful if you mentioned your budget range, your specific other system components, the types of music you listen to and the normal listening volume.
     If you already own a good quality sub and want a truly exceptional bargain pair of speakers at a ridiculously low price, however, my suggestion would be a pair of Magnepan LRS (Little Ribbon Speaker) brand new for $650/pair. 
     These are ordered on-line at the Magnepan site, in your choice of color and I believe are offered with a no charge free in-home trial period.  You may want to use Google to read a few on-line professional reviews.  Most reviews will utilize one or more good quality subs since the LRS only have bass extension down to 50 Hz but are extremely good from 50 Hz on up in the midrange and treble.
     The concept is to optimally setup 1 or more subs in the room for good bass and then position each relatively lightweight LRS, in the room and in relation to your listening seat, to optimize the midrange/treble and sound stage performance.  The idea is also to let the typically more powerful sub amps handle the higher power demands of the bass frequencies, which frees up the main power amp to just reproduce the less demanding powe needs of the mid and treble frequencies
     Just a final note: The LRS still require a good quality and fairly powerful (about 100 watts or more) amp to perform their best.  I'd advise to choose alternative speakers if you want to utilize a receiver to power the LRS.

Hope this helped,
     Tim 
     
      

If you like Monitor Audio, which I do, and you want to keep it semi simple, get a newer pair of Golds.  Gold 100’s or 200’s with the ribbon tweeters.  Really really nice speakers… I’ve had a ton of speakers, and golds are awesome.  You will not be disappointed!

If you audition something via Crutchfield, as I did, some of the bigger speakers only cost $10 each, one way, to audition for two months. They don't carry everything but some of their stuff is excellent. 

@soix

I’m not one to make recommendations blindly, but I’d highly recommend you do an in-home trial of the LSA-20 Signatures available here from the manufacturer for $2299/pr. You have pretty darn good speakers already IMHO so won’t be easy to significantly beat without a decent cost outlay, but as the LSAs are sold direct they offer extraordinary value and perform way above their price point (read reviews), and I do believe they’ll significantly better your RS8s in pretty much every meaningful way. Several people here have bought these on my recommendation and have all been surprised and thrilled with how good they sound, and nobody returned them. BTW, I have no relation to Underwood HiFi (manufacturer/seller), just a big fan of who designed them and how they were designed from the ground up. Plus, and as you obviously know it’s hard to demo good speakers these days so the in-home trial is a very nice feature of the LSA speakers. Hope this helps, and best of luck.

i thought one thing that walter will not do is offer money back trials for products he sells... perhaps i am mistaken on this regarding his selling l-s-a speakers...