Dynaudio 52 vs. 52SE?

I agree with Jax - the highs irratated me after a while too, the bass response was excellent but bass gets boring after 5 minutes...(unless you wanna party 8 days a week) the (all important) voices didn't sound right too me, thin and 'missing ' for want of a better word... I think the sales and marketing are telling the designers what they want to hear... unsatisfying at low volume

I listened to the 52SE for a long time using Simaudio P-5/W-5 with AudioNote UK transport and DAC. I didn't find the speaker especially shrill ... a good test I find is the first track on the first Nora Jones CD ... I am not a big fan but I use this as one test track. On some systems, the bad recording comes out especially shrill and even painful. The 52SE didn't do too bad in that regard. Yet, I wasn't really moved by the speaker ... too lean for my musical tastes. Not that I am sure the Living Voice is perfect for me either, but switching to the Living Voice Avatar from the 52Se was night and day. Certainly I found the LV to be much more musical, emotional, and more room filling.

The 52SE needs quite a bit of break in time to smooth them out. I'm driving them with a Musical Fidelity A3.2 with 175W into 4 ohms. They sound fantastic.