Intimate, warm and holographic alternative

bobandcindy, you and I are obviously on the same page. You have never heard a speaker disappear until you here an excellent system around ESLs. However, Martin Logans are not the best ESLs going. Because the curved diaphragm is not linear they have to cross to a standard driver at the bottom of the midrange which steals much of the ESL magic. Roger Sanders designed the curved diaphragm as a means of dealing with the poor high frequency dispersion large panels have. You can read what he thinks about it on his web site. Sound Labs has the best solution to that problem avoiding the need to crossover to another driver entirely. All the other speakers mentioned in this post from MBL to Tekton (yuk) can not hold a candle to a proper ESL. With the exception of a few horn designs there are ESLs and then there is everything else. Modern ESLs are not the fragile, amplifier eating beasts they use to be. They are more dynamic, and play louder than most speakers excepting a few horn designs. Because they can easily be configured as a full range line source the sound stage you get is a more realistic size and because the volume drop off with distance is not near as severe it is easy to set them up so that the effective listening area is as wide as the room. No dynamic speaker can do this. People who like full range drivers are barking up the right tree. ESLs are really big full range drivers. There is a unity of presentation that only a full range driver can have. The distortion levels of an ESL are at least two orders of magnitude lower than any dynamic driver. In listening to dynamic loudspeaker based systems what you here  predominantly are the characteristics of the speaker. The music sounds like the speaker. With good ESLs what you hear are the characteristics of the recording. The speaker vanishes. In my experience they are the only type of loudspeaker that does this. I have it on authority from people I trust that there are horn systems that will do this. I have little to no experience with them.  Admittedly ESLs are not going to be everybody's cup of tea. Just their size is prohibitive for many then there is the cost including the expense of a higher powered amplifier capable of sounding good into a reactive, very low impedance (at high frequencies) load. But if you have the room and the money you owe it to yourself to find a system you can audition. People who live in the northeast are welcome to contact me and set up a date. I do not sell loudspeakers or any audio equipment for that matter and have no kick back arrangement with any manufacturer.

I agree that Tannoy and Klipsch Heritage (newer the better) are right in the ballpark of a real solution. If I was trying those makes out I’d lean towards valve amping them—yet I’d surely be open to trying some SS too.  Keep us posted on your decision too. Wish I was in your shoes. Great time to be an audiophile! 

Rosso Fiorentino should be on a short list for these requirements.  The Elba 2 has a handful of reviews out now, including Robert Harley from TAS in the April Issue.  I would suggest looking at the Volterra as a real option and pairing it with a Norma IPA-140B.  Both product lines hail from Italy and together create a synergy that symbolizes the beauty of Italian audio.

For full disclosure, I am the distributor for both products.  

I also love the metaphor above:

people who like full range drivers are barking up the right tree

Fatigue from the Orangutans, too in your face? What setup did you hear with these.
id put them at the top of the pile for a organic holographic presentation without any fatigue