I have NOVA V's and I am not happy

@ozzy62

I agree that getting different speakers is a great option, but if someone wanted to keep these speakers I don’t see any other option than EQ. And, if the off axis response is a smooth mirror of the on-axis response the results will sound excellent. I doubt that’s the case with this speaker but an equalizer can be a great thing if properly applied, doing far more audible good than harm. It’s more like putting shoes on your feet for a walk in the woods than a band-aid. It doesn’t just fix errors. It opens up new possibilities. Without filters much less would be possible in audio. For one thing we'd be stuck with whatever a full range driver could do. Or we'd just have to come up with drivers that roll off correctly on both ends of their ranges without any crossovers and somehow sum correctly. I think crossovers are great in speakers, and I don't consider them a band-aid. If I want to modify the response I'm just modifying the crossover.

Those older Nautilus 800 series B&Ws actually measured fairly flat compared to current models and were arguably better speakers than the current series.

As for the SFs, I auditioned the Nova IIs and thought they were quite neutral. They were being driven by a relatively entry-level integrated though. 
 

I wonder if what you’re actually hearing is cone breakup from the midrange driver. It is absurdly common these days for manufacturers to fail to design a proper crossover network for the driver limitations. Even brands like Revel and Dynaudio have been guilty of this in recent years. They don’t low-pass the woofer or midrange cone at a low enough frequency so you end up hearing cone break-up distortion when the speaker is pushed, often in the 2-4kHz range where our hearing is most sensitive. I’m not claiming that’s definitely the issue with your SFs but it’s very common throughout the industry. No good excuse, just lazy engineering.

Anyhow, just a possibility. Also, as others have alluded to, some amps really struggle with the high capacitance of Kimber cables. I wouldn’t expect that from ML amps but something to experiment with. Supplementing some hardware store zipcord will be sufficient for determining whether it’s the Kimbers.

@mckinneymike Good luck in your search. There are a lot of options and I was in a similar situation about 10 years ago. I was very unimpressed with many speakers that had strong reputations - B&W, Mission, Martin Logan and others were close but there was something missing. 
 

And I have noticed my tastes change. I was really happy with both NAD and McIntosh previously and now I am much more drawn into Moon and Audio Research. 
 

I encourage you to create an audition list of music you like and have listening sessions at retailers and if possible friends systems. 
 

good luck

I have these speakers paired with a McIntosh integrated amp and they sound sublime. 

I’d add that my integrated has a EQ controls which gives me a lot of tonal flexibility.