I own a pair of Sonus Fabers Olympica III's which I bought after owning the Joseph Audio Pulsars. As much as I loved the sound of the Pulsars[make no mistake,they are a great 2-way] the SF's are just in another leaque.The Olympica's are way more refined,but at almost twice the price,they better be.
The Pulsars are image champs, but for my tastes, they were not a speaker that could go loud and keep up on some material. I guess I prefer a bit larger speaker. In the past I have owned Advent, ADS,Legacy,Merlin,Talon,JA,as mentioned,and now the SF Olympica III's. I am not saying the SF's will be my retirement speaker,but,they are the finest sounding speaker I have personally owned.
Once set up properly the music just flows from these.They are sound stage champs and a pure pleasure to listen to. Voice and instrument are pure heaven... which have an organic... natural sound, that to my ears, just plain sound right...giving most material spot on tonality and gestalt. Be aware though,they are power hungry.Feed them some high quality watts and you will be rewarded for the effort in doing so. They are rated at 4 ohm impedance but I believe they drop into the 3-3.5 range,so high current will be needed to open up the virtues of these speakers to the level that will make them worth the price of admission. I'm not saying less watts are a deal killer on these but control of the drivers are key here.By the way, they sound just as good at low volumes as they do at high levels,no break-up and they love to go loud. But as usual, room size plays a key role in this.
I can give a hearty recommendation if you love Italian craftsmanship and beauty from a company that most other speaker builders aspire to be.By the way,they build everything in house,to their specs. Not to many speaker companys doing that anymore.
Good luck in your search Fsmithjack.