Alternatives to B&W 805 D4

Thanks everyone for the variety of suggestions. Plenty of reading ahead, I counted 17 different suggestions. Amazing!

But I’m puzzled about how I can make a good selection. I can read reviews or graphs, but it will never be enough information to discriminate one over another. I need to listen to them. And I’m not working in that industry nor I have tested hundreds of speakers myself. So the only way for me is to listen to (most/some of) them, on the same amp/source, in the same room at a short time interval. I know places that have one or two of those proposed models but even comparing 6-7 models before a final choice seems irrealistic.

I’m pretty sure you all faced this situation at one point or another. How did you do? Did you just try one and buy it if it sounded "good enough" or at least better than your previous ones?

I know I can go in a store and compare B&W 805 D4, B&W 705 S2 Signature, and Totem Fire Element V2, but if I want to also add a Focal or a Kef, I need to go to another city! And for some of the other proposed models, I would need to fly to another country... not really practical.

Am I doomed? I feel that all future changes to my system (next in line is a DAC) will hit the same wall and I’ll have to ultimately may an educated guess at best, without really knowing if I got "the best" (for me).

@soix:
Yes, I saw the question but I'm not sure I'll be able to articulate a sensible answer :-) The more, I read the more it's clear that there is no one-speaker-that-is-the-best-at-all-styles, so I get your question! But I like, and listen, to a pretty wide range of music types. But looking more closely at my Spotify library, it's mainly female voices of many styles (Holy Cole, Adele, Coeur de Pirate, Elle King, Angèle, ..) but also some classic rock (Metallica, Led Zeppelin, ..,), signers with amazing voices (Louise Attaque, Asaf Avidan, ...), classical classic (Beethoven, Vivaldi, Chopin, ...) and... probably anything in between. 

Looking at the incredible comparaison between Focal Sopra No1 and Bowers 805D3 shared by @james633 (thank you so much for that!), I must admit that contrarily to my initial belief , I appreciate the Focal more that the B&W. I will definitely try them before my final decision. I'm pretty sure I can sacrifice a bit of the warmth and loudness of the B&W for the clarity and precision of the Focal.
This comparaison is even more instructive as my no.2. contender, the Totem Element Fire V2, has even more bass then the B&W, at least on paper (I haven't heard them yet).
Sopra No.1 :45Hz - 40kHz
805 D4: 34Hz - 35k Hz
Element Fire V2: 30Hz - 22kHz

And my understanding is human ears don't pickup anything above 20kHz, so going to 35 or 40 kHz is music for...dog! (Happy to have this assumption challenged as I am in full learning mode!)

After more investigation, the Revel 226be are not available in my region, I would need to have the import without actually see or hear them, and the room I have (my office) is small. But they look good for sure.

A contender I'll add to my short list is the Dynaudio Heritage Special as one of the local dealer has a pair so I'll be able to compare them to 805 D4 and Elemental Fire V2. However, no luck to find a dealer to have the Sopra #1 on demo yet, and they are a bit over budget (11.5k CAD). If I can listen to them, I might be able to break the bank.

Thanks everyone for your advices and suggestions. 

And don't miss the next part of this journey, the best song to evaluate a system (it will be speakers in my case):
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/top-3-songs-to-evaluate-a-system

Cheers!

So it's done... I now own a pair of Focal Sopra No.1. I have them for 4 days and I am truly amazed. It was quite an upgrade from my no-named micro monitor.

I'm using (rather old, but still good) McIntotsh C712 + MC 7100. With a Bluesound Node and trying to figure out if I should replace my good old Spotify account for one that offest lossless/MQA , and if yes, which one. A topic for another post!

Thanks everyone for the hints and suggestions.

 

 

@wadia150 The node is next on my upgrade list. I ended up replacing the McIntosh with a Luxman L-509x and now the DAC is clearly the bottleneck.

Still... The sound quality never stop to amaze me and I can hardly believe it can be improved (but I know I'm wrong!). I have my eyes on a second hand Luxman DA-06 but still are the beginning of my exploring journey of DACs. Any suggestion that will pair well with the Focal/Lux is welcome.