Thanks for the tip and your response. Fair enough, hearing perception and taste are subjective. What I’m looking for in the CW IV is primarily (1) midrange presence and some warmth, (2) natural tone from the instruments with all the harmonics present, (3) appropriate relative volume of the various instruments and vocals, (4) ability to listen at low volumes without the music sounding lifeless, and (5) ability to listen to music that was not recorded as well but still enjoy it.
I went down the B&W path a couple of years ago and have never been happy, especially with the sound of recordings of the 1970s pop/rock of my youth, but even with some classical, which is the majority of my listening. I found that it’s relatively easy these days to get amazing detail (the sound of the bassoon player accidentally kicking the music stand, etc.) but that I was quickly bored with the extra detail if the tone of the music was unnatural. No emotional connection. For a while I thought that perhaps my hearing had deteriorated more than I was aware of, or there was something else wrong with my system. Chased it for quite a while. Then, on a whim, I bought a set of not-so-pretty Heresy IIs for $600 in the local neighborhood from FB Marketplace. And immediately found what I had been missing in terms of natural-sounding music, even from some 40-year old Heresies. Proved to me that I wasn’t crazy, too.
That’s what brought me back to Klipsch. I read wonderful things about the IV series of all the Heritage speakers, just trying to verify that I won’t be disappointed by modified CW IVs. Thanks for your help.