B&W CDM9NT, or Misson 753f, or CSW T300?

If I could get CDM9NT's for $800, it would be a no brainer. I just bought mint CDM7NT's for $1400 and I love them. I am using Transparent Super bi-wire on them which works great. I checked the specs and the 9NT went only 2 Hz lower and didn't feel that I needed to spend more. Good luck.

I think you should probably go with the Missions 753f's. I owned a pair of the previous 753's and I loved them (I since gave them to my brother). The "f" version is supposed to be even better with the silk dome tweeter. They really are great speakers (great for vocals) and they're WAY WAY underated in this country...that's your advantage as far as price goes (I think I paid $1700-$2000 for rosewood 753's back in 95). Besides the quality and the sound, I think they're easily your choice because of your placement issue. The Missions are made to be placed 8" from the rear wall and I don't think you'll find many other speakers that can be placed within 12" to 16" without some boomy bass issues. THe Missions won a lot of European awards and recieved good reviews in all of the British hi-fi mags. I've never heard anything good about the Cambridge speakers (unless you count the shill write-ups in Stereo Review or whatever), and I think there was recently a thread on this site (or AudioAsylum) mentioning a review that slammed the B&W CDM series. You might want to do some searches on the various models on both sites. Good luck.

With only a few left on your list, you should go out and listen for yourself. You have narrowed it down to four, which makes our opinions almost meaningless. How speakers perform is very open to personal taste and accompanied components. A good system could be devised using any of these speakers with the right components. Just because someone likes or dislikes one particular speaker is just personal opinion. I would not make a big dollar decision based on it.