Who has heard and can comment on any of these brands??

For a long time I had rather small Audio Physic (Yara 2) speakers until last year. Amazing soundstage for that price. A friend owns a bigger pair and what I heard was just great. Definitely worth checking out.

I wanted Audio Physic Virgo for some time but settled for more affordable Tempo 25 which I enjoyed for several years. Then I went shopping for subwoofers to go with them, came across a trade-in pair of Codex and bought them instead, They are fabulous speakers in every way: exceptionally well-delineated deep/wide stereo image, great dynamics and wonderful bass reach, as well as impressive timbre and tonality across the range and the speakers themselves almost disappear. And very nicely made and finished.

Mine are the original model, AP recently released an update with spider-less midrange drivers for which they claim even better sonics and lower distortion. I haven’t heard them though.

sound|kaos speakers look wonderful, but I haven’t seen/heard them in real life. I’d love to try their RiPol sub-woofer in particular.

I have had a pair of Audio Physic Virgo III loudspeakers in my system for the past nine years. While every other component has “come and gone” multiple times, the speakers remain. They’re reasonably easy to drive, very balanced in terms of the frequency response/spectrum, and once set up properly, image like crazy. The one thing they will not do is provide exaggerated/bloated bass response.

A physical attribute that drew me to them is the front profile. From the listening position they present more like a monitor (smaller footprint), rather than a large box. I do not have experience listening to other Audio Physic models, so nothing to add/contribute there.

I had the Audio Physics Tempo Plus speakers for a little while. They were fun speakers but I found them to be colored compared with Bache speakers. I had listened to the Audio Physics Avanti which I thought had a more refined midrange and tighter bass, but I also found it to be on the thin side and more forward. 

I've heard of but have never actually heard or demoed Stenheim speakers. The last time I was seriously shopping for a pair of towers for my two-channel system upgrade, I spent serious seat-time over several months with approximately 15 or 18 different contenders in serious, orchestrated and scheduled critical listening mode. A pair of Aerial Acoustics 6T were one pair I spent time with that absolutely blew my socks off! Unfortunately, my amp doesn't generate the kind of current these fine speakers deserve to do them true justice. For those of you who may be reading this, have the right kind of amp to do these speakers justice and around seven grand to spend on an upgrade, I can't encourage you enough to do what you have to do to audition these speakers! These Aerial 6T I heard were a pair of trade-ins. After the audition, I asked the salesperson what the people who had owned these outstanding speakers traded them in for. He pointed to a pair of Stenheim Alumine 3. If I had 30 grand to spend on a pair of speakers and the type of playmates they deserve, I would love to hear these things for myself.