New Speakers under consideration - but I’m afraid

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

First world problems!

Fear......fear....is it real.

Especially is you are a member of the "enemy within" crowd. The fear may be very real depending on the outcome of 11/ 5.