How much to spend to beat $1200 10yr old speakers?

Olivier-your KEF's are pre uni-q, which i beleive is a whole different animal- I've heard differing opinions on the KEF's with uni-q, from those who believe they are polite to others who think they are bright and foward- having never tried any other speakers in my system i'm not sure but i think they are a better match with my CJ amp than the PSB silver's that the dealer demoed the amp with 2 years ago- those were a bit too laid back with the CJ which seemed to "open up" when i got it home with my KEF's- so if KEF's are bright, bright is Ok with me- i hear the quad's have quite nice bass response for their size- something i could use a bit more of- how much are the 12l's anyways?

i've got a conrad johnson cav-50 integrated and recently picked up a sony scd ce 775 to satisfy the SACD bug on the cheap

i don't know if i need to replace them at all but i might consider it if the concensus is that speaker tech has come far enough in the past ten years that say $600-900 speakers will do everything better than what i have- i listen to acoustic jazz, classical, some pop and bluegrass. i'm just not sure what's out there now, but i'd certainly be ok with keeping my KEF's for a while- i like monitors but i had a chance to listen to the meadowlark swifts and liked them but it was a brief audition and not in my system- alot of the good dealers are about 110 miles away

Phasecorrect, i agree, i heard the hot rod kestrels a couple years ago hooked up to some cheaper (goldentube) equipment and they were pretty stunning- so transparent, holographic imaging and good clean bass response- i wonder how the new Kestrel II will be, but thats a whole other price range- the imaging from the swift's was pretty holographic but they may be a bit lean as you said- at the time i thought maybe it was the amp- also, they sit kind of low for my ears, making images a little short- but hey, less than $1000 new- i'm intrigued by the quads but i think they'll be hard to find here in oregon