Sunnyjim,
Thought I'd weigh in here with some things that might be helpful. Yes, component shopping and swapping can make a person cranky; no argument there.
That said, I owned a pair of the Reference 3A De Capo's; they were not 100% current: they had the older, veneered cabinet, but they did have the current main driver with the Surreal Acoustic Lens. And when the BE tweeter became available, did the upgrade.
The De Capo is a classic for a reason; it's a great speaker. And if you don't have a Reference 3A dealer in your locale, Tash Goka will sell to you direct at a small discount, and give you a 30 day return trial; you're only out shipping if not happy. You can find my very detailed De Capo BE review here.
All that said, and even given my fondness for the Reference 3A sound and company, if the De Capo is now selling for nearly $3600, I believe you can do better for the money.
To go back to an earlier post in this thread, I got to live with the Fritz Carbon 7 SE for a couple of weeks and posted this review on my blog. At $2500, it's a great, great value. Heck, at $3000 it would also be a great value. If I could afford to own several pairs of speakers, I'd easily have bought the review pair. In terms of imaging and low end extension, they smoke the De Capo's, at least in my room with my equipment. And the icing on the cake is that Fritz Heiler is a prince of a guy to deal with. Just my 2 cents. If you're in LA anyway, you might as well take advantage of that fact and let Fritz show you what he has available.
Thought I'd weigh in here with some things that might be helpful. Yes, component shopping and swapping can make a person cranky; no argument there.
That said, I owned a pair of the Reference 3A De Capo's; they were not 100% current: they had the older, veneered cabinet, but they did have the current main driver with the Surreal Acoustic Lens. And when the BE tweeter became available, did the upgrade.
The De Capo is a classic for a reason; it's a great speaker. And if you don't have a Reference 3A dealer in your locale, Tash Goka will sell to you direct at a small discount, and give you a 30 day return trial; you're only out shipping if not happy. You can find my very detailed De Capo BE review here.
All that said, and even given my fondness for the Reference 3A sound and company, if the De Capo is now selling for nearly $3600, I believe you can do better for the money.
To go back to an earlier post in this thread, I got to live with the Fritz Carbon 7 SE for a couple of weeks and posted this review on my blog. At $2500, it's a great, great value. Heck, at $3000 it would also be a great value. If I could afford to own several pairs of speakers, I'd easily have bought the review pair. In terms of imaging and low end extension, they smoke the De Capo's, at least in my room with my equipment. And the icing on the cake is that Fritz Heiler is a prince of a guy to deal with. Just my 2 cents. If you're in LA anyway, you might as well take advantage of that fact and let Fritz show you what he has available.