Thanks for the replies so far and please keep them coming.
I own the 2Cs and I've heard other Vandys; I know the 5 is popular and I really liked the 4 when I heard those. I dismissed Klipschs (and JBLs and a bunch of other stuff) in the 1970s, and I know that from an audiophile perspective that the Vandy's are theoretically more tonally accurate and phase coherent, etc., and I realize we're talking "apples and rutabegas" as Swampwalker says, but something that Jaybo said resonated with me highly: "just get me off this merry-go round", and also "screw hi end, let's rock".
I'm a big ARC fan and have had several of their tube amps and preamps; currently I'm driving the the 2Cs with an ARC solid state D400MkII - which is surprisingly good and has plenty of guts; no doubt the system gear is all reasonably good including an ARC CD3MkII. But I had a chance to hear a pair of Cornwalls that were driven by an all-in-one (CD, tuner, amp nearly a boom box) with probably 26 gauge speaker wire with both speakers sitting side by side (a foot apart) in a small bedroom and I could tell there was a lot of fun music coming out; and there are clearly a lot of big fans of Cornwalls who have very happily kept their speakers for many years. And I'm thinking set up properly in a room with a good 300B amp they might just boogie but still be "delicate" and "defined" with good "texture" and most importantly, get me out of "analytic land". On the other hand, they might be fatiguing and short lived.
The thought of a 100dB or so sensitivity speaker that could let a tube amp do some magic is kind of intriguing - but since I prejudicially ruled out Klipsch (and some other brands) about 35 years ago its kind of hard to go over to the not real official high end gear dark side. But maybe its worth a try?
In general, Id day that if after 35 years Im still looking, I havent found what Im seeking, and so maybe I ought to look elsewhere. Having said that, a few years ago I went on the full ascent and went for some Soundlab M3 electrostats and some mondo ARC and VTL tube amps and I determined that I could never get from here to there not because the SLs and the tube gear wasnt great (the system was awesome in several respects; the detail, definition, and imaging were exquisite) but because my room is marginal at best; its almost big enough (about 18 x 12) but after listening and studying my room carefully with a spectrum analyzer I discovered my room just has crummy dimensions, reflections, nulls, etc. that all result in some strange frequency response curve. I came to the conclusion that the room is half or more of the end result, sold the gear and gave up. If I could build a custom room (probably along the lines of what Cardas recommends), I'd go back to the Soundlab electrostat and deluxe tube gear route, no doubt.
Anyway, being a committed hifi-er - I can quit any time I want, I just dont want to :), I started over again with the Vandy 2Cs (and some DQ-10s which are also very good), but Im stuck again and its probably the room but just maybe, for some reason, even with or despite the room issues, the Cornwalls and a Sophia 300B would be the ticket. Or maybe the room is just lousy and I should quit fighting acoustics and physics.
- one last thing: I read that the big Klipsch's want to be in the corners, but that smaller models like the Cornwalls are less room placement sensitive; it's hard for me to understand how speakers don't have to couple with the room in some particular respect includng positioning relative to each other and relative to the the room in order to get a coherent image and a proper frequency response, but maybe Cornwalls can sound good, or at least "fun" in a wider range of rooms than more traditional "high end" gear?
My goal use to be to have near perfect music reproduction including accurate frequency response, with great air, imaging, texture, definition, and detail - but at this point, I'd settle for enjoyable and fun. I just want to put on the music and enjoy the music.
I guess the answer is "it's probably just one more crap shoot investment in some gear that could probably be resold, so why not give it a try?" - but any advice is appreciated.
Thanks