New Marantz SA11S2?

I believe the Bent and VTL both roll off the high end, so you need a brighter player. I never owned Magnepans or Quads ES (electrostats). Although ES are very detailed and open, I believe their sound beams, so you need to be in a sweet spot, and also, they roll off the upper top.

Perhaps this is simply a system matching and taste issue. People often forget how important it is that components compliment the particular characteristics of the system.

You can change an interconnect and almost totally change the sound of the whole system, for example.

Are your Western Electric cords of recent build or older? The ones I had are older and either double or single braided. The single braid was for lower wattage and double higher and higher gauged. The older double braids are double wrapped or wound and much thicker than the single. There is no mistaken which is which so thats why I ask. I would not consider them as being real smooth tone wise so thats why I questioned them again in your system.

The JPS Labs digital power cord is also decent

This repartee between MrTennis and Zear really drives home the fact there is a often a large disjunct among us regarding the way we perceive sound. I do not wish to be rude to MrTennis, he has a right to his opinions, biases, and preferences. Hopefully, he'd not find it out of line if I made the observation that he does tend to initially state his opinions in a rather didactic manner that discounts subjectivity. As a SA11S1 owner, I to am at a loss to explain his perception of thinness. If anything, I'd say that some might find it the reverse of that. Perhaps his perceptions could be, in part, a system compatibility issue. The importance of compatibility was again demonstrated to me when I recently had to remove my SA11S1 for a repair and reintroduced a Cambridge 640c cd player that I thought I knew the sound of. Quite a number of system changes have taken place since the last time I listened to it; new interconnects, Boston Audio XL footers, better power cords, and different amplification. The sound of the Cambridge changed so much I couldn't reconcile it with my past memories. As a reviewer MrTennis knows the importance of system context, I'm not suggesting otherwise at all. Perhaps (likely) nothing would change his opinion. All I'm saying is that, for myself, sometimes I often think I'm sure of the sonic signature of a component and then I hear it in a new context and the limitations of my knowledge are made painfully apparent.

Photon46,
I suspect that the Bent TVC might not be matching in Mr. Tennis's system. But he is a reviewer and he hears perfectly than any one of us. So what you say about the Marantz is not valid :-)))