Performer-in-Room Quality with Speakers?

Your priorities are the same as mine---above all else, the voice(s) right there in the room, standing ten feet away (if that’s what’s on the recording, of course). In addition to lifelike tonality and freedom from (to quote Gordon Holt) vowel colorations (which rules out horns for me), for me that requires life-size scale and image height (I don't like looking down on the stage, or voices three feet off the floor), and I’ve been satisfied in those regards only by big planars---ESLs (Quads on stands, Sanders, Sound Lab, Martin-Logan, etc.) and Magnetics (Maggie and Eminent Technology). Planars excel in all those regards, as well as transparency (which you know all about, having as do I Stax ESL phones). But planars as you know require considerable space, the availability of which you don’t specifically mention. Some of the big 6’ floor-standing box speakers come close, but point source radiators don’t do it for me. There are a lot of great speakers out there, if you’ve got the cash and floor space! Try to hear the Sanders if you can---they’re really, really good.

I heard the Sanders at last year’s T.H.E. Show in Irvine cerrot, and loved ’em. One of the two best speakers at the show I thought, the other being the Marten Coltranes in the EAR-USA room.