thinking about replacing my Shahinian Arcs with...

stick with shahinian. as you already know, the wilsons are impressive LOOKING

As a fellow Shahinian owner of both Obelisks and Diapasons, let me tell you that Shahinian sure does not make the world´s only speakers worthy of listening to. But once you have get used to their omni-/semidirectional acoustical presentation, you may find it very hard or disappointing to go back to a conventional design, such as the Wilson`s. So in your case, make sure you get to hear these speakers first. I go a lot to high end shows, but the only other speakers that would tempt me are other omnidirectional speakers, such as Ohm, MBL or Duevel (with regard to the Obelisk. With the Diapason, in fact, nothing else tempts me). So my advice would be to explore a pair of used Obelisks. If you are patient and search regularly on e-bay (including the US), audiogon and the German audiomarkt.de, you should be able to get a decent pair somewhere between 1500 and 3000 Euros within a few months. Import from the US to the UK will be no problem, duty for used speakers limited. If you want to go even higher, I´d look for used Hawks or Diapasons insted of Wilson/WATTs.

Guys, thanks for your sharing your experiences - gives me a lot to think about & track down. I've also now added pix of my system onto the site.

A store who had a used pair of Shahinians which were sold when I got there suggested Hyperion 938's after we discussed the type of sound /what I was after - even though they are'nt dealers for them so I guess that's something else to audition in between by Shahinian fixes!

Any thoughts from everyone in Audiogonland on how the Shahinians house sound compare to these rave reviewed new kids on the hi-end block?

Well, I've just got myself a pair of Shahinian Obelisks - I auditioned various speakers (as you can tell from this thread ;-) including a pair of not run in pair of B&W nautilus 802D's at £8000

Anyway, the speakers I'd checked out really couldn't match the overall musical & practicle performance of the Obelisk's and weren't worthwhile, justifiable upgrades from my Arc's.

Thanks for all your opinions and for reading this thread.