Your experience/thoughts on Meadowlark speakers, esp., Kestrel, 2, hot rod. etc

When I was helping a friend buy his first system more than ten years ago I bought a used pair of the original Kestrels to go with his Marantz separates. I was really impressed with them and he still has them, I was listening to them last week during a visit and again really enjoyed them. Also helped another friend by a pair of the Swifts. At the time I helped buy the Kestrels I owned a pair of Thiel 2.3 speakers driven by McCormack electronics. I never warmed to the Thiels and didn't keep them long. Other than the basic design that attempts to time-align the output of the drivers they had almost nothing in common in terms of their sonic signature. This might not be a fair comparison since none of the three systems had electronics in common and their was a considerable price differential.

I owned a pair of Shearwater Hot Rods a long time ago. They sounded a little mellow in the room I had them in. They were placed well away from the side walls and I was sitting lower than the tweeter axis.

I listened to a pair of Thiels - not sure what model - but I felt the upper midrange / treble seemed accentuated.

Vandersteen speakers also follow a similar philosophy to Meadowlark and Thiel - first order crossover, time aligned drivers.

IMHO, easier to drive but not as good as Thiels. YMMV.

i owned the kestrel hotrods and i'm sorry i sold them--very "musical," with seamless driver coherence  and none of the exaggerated frequencies that other manufacturers use to create the illusion of more detail. they also imaged well, with lots of space between the performers. some might find them bass-shy--they don't plumb the depths--but they're  at least adequate+ they're easy to drive and not super-fussy about front end--i ran them with an arcam avr for awhile and they sounded fine.