As one of the last upgrade to my set I want to upgrade by current Monitor Audio Silver RX8 speakers. After the upgrade of my amplifier to a Musical Fidelity M6i the sound became definitly too bass heavy. In het past I have had also two RX8 predecessors.

Looking at a budget to about $4500 I created an initial shortlist consisting of:

Dynaudio Focus 260
Sonus Faber Venere 2.5
PMC Twenty.23

The latter was elected speaker of the year by some magazine. I had a chance to buy (scond hand) its bigger brother for less the the PMC 23 price. Looking at all the raving reviews this must be a very good speaker but I could not like the sound. I definitly missed bass. Sure I want less bass because my current speakers are too bass heavy but there was no punch when hearing drums etc. The acoustics of the listnening room where bad but the sound I like was so far off that I could risk that my own living room acoustics would solve the shortcomming I heard.

Ofcourse when now listnening to my own speakers again their bass heavyness annoys me even more so the PMC did something.

The other two are on my list also because of the raving reviews but I did not have a chance yet to listen to them.

What I seek is a very detailed but musical speaker with a full sound, a huge soundstage and which presents itself with much 'air'. Sorry I'm not native english speaking but what I mean is that the instrument separation must be very good. Don't want to hear as if it were to came from a blender.

Allthough sound must come first when selecting a speaker, its design I find also important. The next range of Monitor Audio, the gold series, I find very ugly with its metal grill. I'm not looking for exotic design form factors.

What would be speakers that I need to have a listen to?