Feel free to talk me off the ledge

OP,

Just a thought… “fatiguing” doesn’t usually come from speakers, although it can exacerbate it. It usually comes from the electronics in the form of high frequency hash and distortion. It takes a lot of experience to really put your finger on it… but fatigue is the sign. Your Rogue equipment is not known for it… so, I would look at your source. If it is supplying the high frequency problem then it’s going to come out the speakers. If your room is not heavily sonically dampened then that will make it worst.

Can you borrow a real high quality streamer or CD Player . Try some dampening material in the walls behind… carpet in front of speakers. I would verify this is not you problem before proceeding.

@highwayinthesky 

🤣🙂🎉😀

Going through upgrades can be great and coming out the others side wonderful. But if you move too fast without a concrete plan it can result in some real mistakes and disappointment. Just judging by the odd list of speakers you are looking at, and the ones you liked… I think it would be easy to latch on to a speaker with one particular characteristic you like, get them and then being disappointed by loosing several characteristics you liked.

What is your room size and type of music you listen to? Small monitors can be really good at imaging. But they tend not to have the weight across the audio spectrum.

Also, my rule of thumb generally to never upgrade in less that 2x cost of the component it replaces. While speakers vary a lot in performance you can stack the deck in you favor by first identifying the kind of sound you like and upgrading to a higher level of speaker. Sideways moves too easily turn into trading one set of strengths and weaknesses for a different set. Long-term this strategy builds a solid system increasingly educated tastes.

I would recommend consulting the recommended components issue from The Absolute Sound and Stereophile. Look at speakers in your price range. Try to listen to some and compare what you hear with the reviews. Typically speakers are the most expensive component in a well balanced system (meaning all components performing at their maximum capability because the components are complementary). Typically the speaker choice would be first… but it is not critical. You can still take a big step up in sound quality and swap one of the components later to optimize you solution if you have to.