Harbeth & VAC combo

Vac 160i SE here with Harbeth 40.2 and took me awhile but am very pleased now.  It took tube rolling, power conditioning upgrade, tweak room acoustics (rugs corner bass panels) and lot of experimenting with speaker positioning to get it dialed in to sound awesome.  It is in living room so there was some limitations in room but always sounded good just needed experimentation to get bass deep and tight.

They had a fairly large room set up at the NY Audio show with the Harbeth 40.1 and VAC large monoblocks - not sure which model, and a very sophisticated turntable as the source. To my great surprise the overall presentation was not very exciting to my ears, particularly the bass/midbass regions. I don't know if it was the music content or the sound was "too" neutral as compared to some other systems I heard before and after, or I simply expected too much, but I left the room underimpressed.

40.1 still being shown at shows?

40.2 supposedly better at bass among other things......

Sorry, it was probably 40.2, the current model. The show was just a couple of month ago. I'm beginning to wonder if my ears are permanently affected by digital sound and a completely neutral and accurate (analog) system sounds a bit too dull to my ears. Probably true for other folks as well.

Seems like most VAC gear is paired with Harbeth's largest and best speakers.
Mine are the less "expensive" ones. Maybe a lower budged would be more appropriate. Somewhere in the 3-5k range.