New Speakers ... Can't Stop "Listening"

Clarionet:  not sure what components were mated with the SF Oly 3's you listened to, but I can share my experience with you - mated with a Pass Labs X250.8 and a First Sound PD III tubed pre amp, the SF's are anything but 'rolled off', nor 'polite' (read:  boring, veiled, uninvolving). Smooth?  Yes!  Musical?  In spades - big time emotional connection with the music. Big sound stage? Absolutely!  Detailed?  No question.  Refined?  Does the Pope wear a funny hat? Uh, yeah, he sorta does (no disrespect). Yes, very refined.  If I have a complaint about my SF Olympica III's its that in my acoustically challenged, oversized listening space the bass can get kinda lost.  In smaller to medium sized rooms the Oly 3 bass is more than up to the task, very satisfying and tuneful, very effective.  These speakers will pin you to your chair and put your head on a swivel, causing you to move your eyes to look at spaces in the huge soundstage from where instruments and vocals erupt.  It's all a matter of personal taste of course, no right or wrong, but give the X250.8 an hour to warm up and I can listen for hours, at almost any volume level, to virtually any (reasonable) music genre and be satisfied.  You want to hear chatter between musicians, and between musicians and patrons on a live jazz recording in between songs?  Check.  You want to hear the slightest drumstick taps on cymbals?  Check.  You want to hear vocalists inhaling their next breath to belt out the next lyric?  Check.  You want to hear the difference between a steel string vs. a nylon string guitar?  Check.  You want to hear whether there are 2 or 3 or 4 back up singers on stage?  Check.  You want to play loudly and rock out?  Check. Sounds like the key to making the Olympica III's sound their best is to mate them with top end, high powered, high current power amplification and a premier pre amplifier.  Works for me!     

markmendenhall...I couldn’t agree more with your findings,they match mine to a tee. Oh,and the cavernous soundscape with the highly organic and oh so natural musical/emotional presentation is to die for...just amazing!

With so many speakers on the market sounding quite different from one another the question becomes not what sounds the best to any given individual but rather what system more closely represents the original image.   Assuming control of the variables, electronics, cabling, etc., the question becomes how close does any system come to recreating the original live performance, or at least what the recording engineer intended you to hear.  Then we must make the assumption that an accurate recreation of the original image is what the listener will find appealing...which is not necessarily the case.  It is also a mistake to assume that the speaker manufacturer is attempting to develop a speaker that is indeed faithful to the original recording, which is obviously not the case. Perhaps what can be said is that a speaker/system that renders an image approximating the original recording will ultimately be more satisfying with all types of music as well as the soundtrack from a motion picture. Hopefully your "new" sound will continue to please.  If so you've succeeded.    

Joseph Audio definitely makes speakers to die for. I fell in love with a pair of Pearl 3's that I had the opportunity listened to. Immediately, I realized that I had just met my audio soul mate and that there would be no other speaker for me. Unfortunately for my sonic love life, my savings fund towards the $35,000 price tag is only 25% there. I am going to seek out an audition for the Pulsars so I can compare them.  

gnason,

Have you considered the JA Perspectives?

Jeff Joseph said he was trying to essentially make a more affordable, and living-room friendly sized Pearl.
In fact he'd mentioned to me that it was in designing and voicing the Perspectives that he'd thought he'd made advances that he'd like to incorporate into the Pearls, hence afterward he made the Pearl "3" version.

I’ve only heard the Pearl 3’s once, but the Perspectives seemed to carry over that type of midrange quality and purity, and sound plenty big for their size.