Better than Usher Dancer Mini-X DMD?

A very reasonable question that I’m not sure I have a defined answer. Over the years as I’ve bought better and better equipment and I listen to the songs I’ve been listening to for decades and I hear more detail and more things that I didn’t know were even there. After each significant upgrade I think "I’m there, I don’t think there is much more to get out of that music" then I find out I was wrong. This goes for both my stereo room and headphone listening. My big breakthrough this year is how I can pinpoint the location of each instrument or vocalist since I added the ATC amplifier. Had no idea an amp could make that much difference. I would say as of now I find acoustical instruments and vocals near perfection. I think when there’s a lot going on with a lot of instruments and vocals at the same time, at high volume, I lose a little clarity compared to a live performance. I’ve done a little research trying to find out if that’s unavoidable no matter how good the equipment is. It seems there’s different opinions on that subject. There are some high-end audio shops within driving distance I think in metro Detroit. I think I should visit a couple and say let me listen to the best you’ve got. Once I know how good it can get I can then figure out how close I can get within a semi-reasonable budget. To sum it up I guess it’s a case of I don’t know what I don’t know. Thanks for the advice on running my set up 90° from my current configuration

Well, given what you’ve said, the music you listen to, and your amp, without question I’d be taking a very hard look at the ATC SCM40 v2 speakers.  I say this despite being a huge Usher and Joseph Audio fan, I think the SCM40s could be your ticket to nirvana.  FWIW and best of luck. 

Appreciate the advice. I guess I thought a floor stander in that range would be overkill for my small room but it sounds like it wouldn't. I did almost buy a pair of pre-owned SCM19's a few years ago. Do you think they would have been better than the Ushers I ended up buying? Maybe kind of their equals? Unfortunately ATC just had a big price increase across the range. The 19's went up $800 and the 40's went up a thousand. I likely would be looking pre-owned anyway but I imagine those prices will be up also a bit. Just curious do you agree I would want to run them lengthwise in my room, in other words put the speakers along the 9-ft wall with the sound traveling down the 12 ft length of the room? Thanks

Since I first posted this I've made a few changes in my system. Upgraded my preamp to a Violectric V281 preamp/headphone amp and added better interconnects and power cables. Very pleased overall with the sound. As far as the speakers go, I've done a little research and it seems my Ushers are considered to be great cabinets, good drivers but less than optimal internals. Thinking about crossover upgrades and upgrading the internal wiring. One other speaker I considered when I bought these was the Canton Reference 9k stand mounts. At the time Canton's presence in the USA was in doubt but that has been settled apparently. Does anyone have any experience with these. Sounds like build quality is out of this world. Of course I kind of think that about my current speakers as well. One concern I have is the Canton is rear ported and the fact that I'm less than a foot from my speaker to the back wall makes me wonder if I should rule this out, and for that matter rule out all rear ported speakers. Opinions?

Keep the mini-x’s, better than the Focal or dynaudio mentioned above IMO. You can’t compare the mini-x to the 718’s from the past unless the 718’s had the DMD tweeter which is a game changer. I have and still own many Usher speakers, the later 1’s with the DMD tweeter. I have the Usher x-towers which is a $14k floorstand speaker consisting of the mini-x plus the woofer modules with their Eaton 11" woofer. Before this I owned the Mini Dancer ii’s with the DMD tweeter and other Usher Dancer series speakers with their silk dome tweeters. I just moved to a new house with a 16’ x 13’ room and will be using the mini-x speakers without the woofer modules if I put them on the long wall or will use them with the woofer modules if I put them on the short wall. I had the top of the line Totem speakers before going to usher and they were also very nice speakers.

As for ported speakers, I like front ported speakers so they are more room friendly. You can still plug the ports to fine tune them.