New Speakers under consideration - but I’m afraid

@ritter06 Given that you are scientific, I would suggest considering the KEF Reference range.  I have been absolutely blown away by the Reference 1 when compared with Focal and B&W costing several times as much.

The basic scientific reason is that the tweeter and midrange are concentric and emulate a point source. 

This means that both the direct sound and reflected sounds are coherent, especially in the cross-over region, whereas separated drivers interfere.  Sure, careful time-alignment and clamping your head in a sweet-spot help, but there will be cancellations and reinforcements in the floor, wall and ceiling reflections.

There are lots of other subtleties which KEF detail in their 40-page White Paper.  I have never seen anything that technical from B&W.

Thanks. I do have a pair of KEF LS50 and matching sub in another room in sub optimal setting just for TV. I’m impressed by the SQ for the size, build and price. They sound good on their own but playing the same piece through the 801s, you realize what you are missing. A lot. I did seriously  wonder about the R11s but heard the R7s at a shop (my music) and was less than impressed.

But I am believer in co-incident speaker designs and used to have a pair of 15” Tannoy Reds that had ridiculous output and slam- perfect speaker when in your 20’s

couple things come to mind. A Great  pair of reference speakers like R107/2 or matrix 801's in 1990 could be had for $5-6000 and in 2024 it'll cost double that for something 10 years old that's audibly superior and you/we still have to shake that sound that became so familiar after so many years, I ended coming back to the brand of the model I originally had for 25 years because I got used to the balance so they just sound right to me, 

Ritter, today there are a wider variety of materials used for drivers. CAD has gotten far more sophisticated. And the biggest change you can make when swapping out speakers is to go for something with a wildly different design theory.  Vandersteen only uses first-order crossovers, to lower or eliminate phase error (I can't listen to speakers like Focal myself because of their steep crossovers, they sound really unnatural to me). Some designers go with all metal drivers, others with balsa wood, silk or doped paper for their drivers to change dispersion, improve off-axis response and (again) lower or eliminated phase error as the driver moves back to its resting position. Many listeners discover that they prefer open baffle, planar, omnipolar or dipole designs.

It is definitely to your benefit to go to a few shops and listen to a variety of setups. Maybe you could make it to AXPONA next year, it would be well worth your trouble!

@ritter06 - no easy solutions.

1. We cannot tell you what you’ll subjectively like
2. We cannot predict if it’ll work synergistically your other components and/or room

We all have to try/risk for ourselves.

One could try to mitigate the risk by purchasing known synergistically matching amp+speaker combos like Harbeth+Hegel. Or if you find a Demo speaker you like, purchased the speaker and matching electronics. Or, by purchasing sonically neutral speakers transparent to the other audio chain components. And if buying used can resell at minimal cash loss.

In an ideal world, it would be great to have sonic guarantees considering the significant cash outlay and the trouble of changing components. Unfortunately, high-end audio doesn’t grant us this convenience- we all have to struggle our way towards sonic bliss.

Decisions become a lot harder if the budget is very limited or changing the components is very inconvenient. That’s the hobby we’re in