Re: Speakers - If I move to anything else, it will be the LS60 and ditch the Hint6 all together. Parasound & KEF are a great match IMO. Plus, I really don't want to mess around too much with speakers / amp because I'm finally getting what I want to hear out of my analog setup. The LS50 are here to stay (for now at least!).
I could be wrong, but I don't think an analog source would be able to compensate for bad speaker placement or bad amp/speaker combination. If it was a setup/pairing issue i'd also loose the depth and soundstage.
Border Patrol, Orchid, Denafrips Aries have always been those next level DACs. That's probably where I need to go. DAC aside, would cable length, connector type really have that much impact?