well i had a nice 4 hour road trip to canton,ohio on saturday to Hanson Audio. first i have to say, this was the best shop i have ever been to and it was well worth the time. after 6 hours of going through about 10 sets of bookshelfs,{ monitor audio, psb, paradigm,sonus faber,dynaudio, and focal} i had it narrowed down to two. it came down to a fan favorite, dynaudio excite x12, and the sonus faber toy. the dyns had a better bottom end and was a better well rounded speaker. the toys had a remarkable midrange and pleasing tweeter. i knew i would be using a rel t2 subwoofer with whatever i bought so i was not to concerned with the lack of low end on the toys. i decided on the toys, there was just something about them that i loved, and they look awesome in that leather. you would definently need a sub with them but i highly recommend a listen. thanks everyone for the suggestions, i know alot of people recommended the dynaudios and they are also a superb speaker. i could have went either way and been happy.