I've been into high end audio for 30+ years and have owned a lot of different equipment and dozens of different speakers. I've never been very happy with any "mid-fy" speakers and really hated the sound of the old CV's (boomy, sloppy, bass and brutally harsh mids and highs) An old friend who has always liked hard rock and heavy metal played at obscene volumes has always loved CV's. He saw a pair of new, slightly shipping damaged, XLS-215's on Ebay for a song. They were local pick up only and 1400 miles from him but not too far from me.Before he bought them he asked if I'd pick them up and store them for about 4-5 months until he could come and get them. I said yes, so he bought them.In the mean time my car died and I needed some cash for another one so I put my Kuzma Stabi turntable, Aerial 10t speakers, and my Rowland mod 7 amps up for sale. The Aerials sold right away and thinking they'd be slightly better than nothing, I hooked up the XLS-215's. I was really surprised, they sounded far better than I expected right out of the box. I don't have any nearby neighbors so I ran them at high volumes with a break-in disc and a diverse mix of material when ever I left home to break them in quickly. After about 100 hours I played around with their set up to find their best placement in my room. My room is 12'x16' x 9' with everything set up on the long wall. They ended up about 2' away from the back and 4' from the side walls,on large cones,backs raised 1.25" higher than the fronts,two 50lb bags of lead shot on top of each,a bunch of room tunes,and aimed directly at my listening chair, centered and 18" from the opposite wall.With my gear driving them,( Accuphase DD57 CD player, an older Kuzma Stabi/Stogi/Benz glider combo turntable, Rowland Consonance preamp,Rowland Mod 7 mono-block amps and custom cables) I was floored! For their low retail price they sound damned good ! They have a fairly balanced sound, decent sound stage, don't sound boxy are truly full range, really dynamic,don't sound strained at ear bleed volumes. Sure, there are plenty of speakers that have smoother mids/highs, have better staging, are more realistic/refined sounding with intimate classical music,etc and are far nicer looking. But you'd be hard pressed to find any full-range speakers for under $6k that do as good a job with Rock,Jazz, Dynamic orchestra, or movie soundtracks at anything approaching realistic volume levels! I tried them with far cheaper gear and they still sounded good.I even tried them with my garage gear, a used Sony 5 disc CD player($5 yard sale) an old Yamaha stereo receiver with pre-outs($10 yard sale) into a beat up Crown DC300 ($75 Craigslist) with junk wires and they still sounded A OK! Even tho they're quite efficient, don't expect them to perform anywhere near their potential,even at low volumes, with an average receiver,they demand the current a decent amp provides. Best of all, no matter what I drove them with, they put the fun back into listening to my old favorites again! I recently picked up a pair nice used CLSC-215's to replace the XLS's when they leave, They sound almost as good and will get me by until I find another pair of cheap XLS's of my own! To answer your question, I've auditioned the speakers you mentioned, They all sounded OK, but for different reasons, they all had things that kept me from liking them enough to buy a pair, not even taking price into consideration,I liked the XLS's more! I think you would be quite happy with them,but if possible try to audition all 4 of them along with as many really expensive speakers as you can (just like test driving a few dream cars to see how close the real-world priced stuff is) and always bring some of your favorite music to listen to, along with the cuts they use to show off their stuff. --- When ever possible, take things home for a 2-3 day test drive.Take your time! --- Have fun! Then pick what sounds best to you and is in your budget. If it makes you enjoy listening to your favorite music, to hell with what anyone else says or thinks! It's not their ear,living room or hard earned $$$!
Happy Hunting!!!
