Sonus Faber Guarneri vs Guarneri Memento

some of my old favorites:

Acoustic Energy AE1 Signature, lovely midrange and imaging
Dynaudio Confidence 5, lovely detail and midrange, one of the best bass defintion
Sonus Faber Amati Homage, lovely and airy top end couple with very organic midrange
Sonus Faber Extrema, lovely dynamic and midrange
Usher BE-718, just lovely especially for the price

currently own:

Aerial 20T, still experimenting with amplification but they have serious potential. top end is to die for
Sonus Faber Guarneri Memento, sweet/delicate/airy high

some worthy mention that impressed the hack out of me during audition:

Analysis, planar speaker like Apogee
Tidal Acoustic, discovered them 3 years ago, almost bought the Piano Diacera but very high price tag
Usher BE-10/20, one of the best transient and leading edge attack I ever heard, a bargain
Marten Coltrane, incredible speed and resolution

many big names didn't impress like they should, could be the room or upstream components.

Semi,

thank you. Very interesting.

You are not alone in singing the praises of Tidal. There must be something to the speakers, but the cost is prohibitive, as you note.

following this discussion for some time now i have the following comment to make: i own gm's and have experimented with various amplification tube as well as solid state. i am getting wonderful results with the asr emitter exclusive- gm combination. the highs are silky smooth, the imaging is terrific. for below 50hz reproduction i use a rel b3 subwoofer through the hi out of the asr emitter. this is the best combination i have found so far.