Cornwall IV vs. Volti Rival, Razz; Razz v. 1, 2, 3 -- what changed?

I'm just here to say that I'm still thrilled with my Rivals. A buddy came over with the 12" 45 rpm of "For Those About to Rock" and the Rivals may have cracked the foundation. :)  And the mids! The screaming mids! And the lows - the highs were there of course.

Then we put on the MFSL of Beck's Sea Change at a more reasonable volume level and the sound was just as impressive with a nicer more euphoric sound and sound stage.

Then back to hard rock to STP and the volume back up.

Then to Elton's Funeral for a Friend - Speakers Corner vs. UK OG DJM, one after another. 

After that side 2 of a tri-color, Santa Maria of Axis Bold as Love and back down to a more reasonable voulme and WOW -= there is some magic ferry dust in that pressing. The 3D / sound stage was on another planet.

More to follow after that and it was permagrin for 3 hours until my wife came back from her hair appt and power off.

I've never heard a Klipsch Heritage so I can't make that comparison but what I can say that I still look forward to every listening session like it is an event. And it is.

Cornwall IV are decent in stock form but not great, IMO. However, if you’re willing to put some effort and $1,500 or so into them, they become great. Change out the capacitors and resistors in the xover according to the Don Sachs recipe in the long thread thread on this board. Damp the horns and woofer baskets with Dynamat or similar. Upgrade the binding posts to WBT NextGen. None of these mods is complicated or difficult if you can solder and desolder. Because I have a hardwood floor, I adhered Herbie’s Giant Gliders to the bottom corners with carpet tape. Altogether it was maybe 15-20 hours of work because I’m slow, hyper-careful, and minimally skilled.

If I had not done these mods, I would have returned the speakers to MD precisely because of the criticisms mentioned in this thread. Highs were a little aggressive and ragged, tonal balance was tilted up while the bass was inarticulate. I was not satisfied at all. After the mods, combined with a good 300B amp, I have no criticisms worth mentioning. I swap in two other amp/speaker combos into this system, both costing much more. The CW/300B combo is my fav.

It’s weird to buy new speakers and have to perform surgery for them to become acceptable (at least to me). I definitely get that. The Voltis might be as good or better out of the box. But I love these speakers now. They do everything I want in a horn/SET system without going too huge.

Budget? Budget limit?

The budget range was at least implied by the speakers in the initial post -- CW's are around $7k new and Rivals are $16k. That's pretty clear. Put otherwise, I am not interested in spending $20k on speakers, but I am willing to buy used.

Because I am willing to spend, say $16k as the upper end of used, that means that it’s relevant, to me, to allow discussion to range widely, if that means speakers with MSRP much higher than the MSRP of the Cornwalls or Rivals but with the possibility of a used one for sale. You all know that there are always deals out there, but one cannot position oneself to take advantage of them without some criteria. That opens up a range of options, but clearly it does not imply $50k+ speakers

Room will vary. I’m in a 25x14x 6.5 now and will move to a 26 x 15 x 8 room.
Sound characteristics? I’m interested in the usual ones (which I described here already) but with the quickness of horns.

@tvad No worries. Appreciate your taking an interest in the question! Thank you!