Early stages of choosing replacement floorstanders


My room: Hard floors, hard walls, 12X19X8.

Material: Movies/TV most of the time, not critical sound. When I'm listening to music it can be Dire Straits, Enya, Nora Jones, Pink Floyd...I'm actually expecting my enjoyment of a wider spectrum to increase with a good enough system that will be involving.

Size: I have an accepting wife, but I do have a wife so living around the speakers is a factor. I can pull them into the room to a degree, but something closer to the wall is better. What I'm replacing is about 40X17X15, and I can go a little taller, mainly looking to slim down (seems to be the way speaker construction is going anyway, so that's ok)

What I've listened to so far:
PSB Synchrony 1's and Imagine T2's. Liked them both, pleasantly surprised by how good they sounded. The Sychrony has been a little enigmatic - occasionally I've felt it sounded slightly veiled, then other times it hasn't. Electronics and placement has been the same

Theil 2.7's - I think that was the number. Possibly due to placement, but they left me cold.

Vandersteen Treo's - Liked them very much. They were obviously far better set up, in their own room, with about $15K+ of Ayre electronics behind them. Staging was wonderful, involving, very impressed, but tempered by the disparity of set up and associated equipment.

Focal 1028Be - read some reviews, and stumbled onto a dealer with them on display. His set up most closely resembled my setup at home. Powered by Marantz. Liked them very much as well. Heard details and air in some of my recordings I had never heard before..(like the change of direction of the bow across strings, or so it seemed. Details like that) Involving and engaging. I am concerned about that tweeter in my 'live' room though. Definitely pushing the limits of size.

Various B&W's in months past - liked most of what I heard, but would need to relisten in light of more recent speakers I've auditioned.

the questions I'm throwing out to any past/present owners of these is how flexible can I be with placement, can I keep them within 18-24 inches of back/sidewalls? Should I be cautious of rear ported vs front?
Should I choose the speakers I like best regardless of store setup/placement, and then treat my room once I have the speakers, or consider the room heavily in my auditioning before I buy (would that Be tweeter on Focal become to strident in a more live room? Avoid metal dome tweeters? etc).

Budget is less of a concern than finding what I can live with for a while - I'm replacing 25 year old mains now - and used is viable for me. What I've listened to has ranged from 3500-8500. My sources are streaming or discs through an Oppo BDP103, Yamaha receiver for HT, to an Odyssey Stratos. I also have a Hsu ULS15 sub for movies.

I don't expect definitive answers, I'm looking to glean usable information from the wealth of knowledge and experience here that I don't have. Thanks in advance
english210
Hi English,

I have about 96 hrs logged on my CM 10's now, and the first
~20-60 hours they went through a rough phase in that they
sounded good but a little veiled, then after about 60 hours
started to really open up big time and are sounding better &
better. Now (today) I went & bought new speaker cables so
those will now under go break in, so I am just going to
enjoy the ride and let it all rip, but they are amazing
speakers and my keepers!
I received one of (if not the) first pair and have been
playing them about 16hrs a day, so I know the dealers pair
are not near broken in.

BTW, We also watched a movie on them last night and they
were superb which is very important to me. Dialog very clear
at low volume with a lot of power & dynamics when called
for. I do plan on getting a couple of subs down the line for
HT only.
Telescope, how are they sounding now. What speaker wires did you get?

Harley - thanks, I checked out their site a little last night, I'll check them out further - 90 day in home is appealing.
Plenty of good suggestions, to which you might want to add models from the KEF R series, Revel Performa3, Dynaudio Focus.
English210,

They are sounding just fantastic, my wife & I love them. I ended up getting a pair of the Rocket 33 biwire cables. Seems to be a great match. Just bought two new subs and am working on getting them blended in now.