Upgrade from B&W 802D1 to Focal Utopia Scala Evo

Have you adjusted toe-in?  I have found your speakers are very sensitive to that - so much so that they sounded liked different speakers to my wife and I.  

@onehorsepony You are making yourself crazy; yet I get it.  Saving for retirement, spending hard earned money, and being disappointed; it stinks.  IMHO and older ears, I have found over the years both B&W and particularly Focal to be quite fatiguing.  But that is me and obviously they are both very well respected companies. With regard to top end stress, I do not think there will be a huge difference relative to the experience of the highest frequencies of either brand.

I know as I have gotten older I am much more sensitive to certain recordings with some female vocals, piano, or even horns at times.  Poorly mastered/engineered recordings can be really grating.  And that can change from day to day.

Seems like you have to take a monetary hit or if if you have spent your limit, try some of the logical suggestion the members here have offered as ideas. If you are able to take a monetary hit, seems to be a different brand altogether may be in the cards.  Do what is reasonable within your budget constraints. Try not to make yourself nuts.

Update: I have tried all my various interconnect, speaker, bi-wired, speaker tone-jumper combinations without any success.

I went back to the most bright/aggressive cables I have:

All Audioquest Water interconnects

Bi-Wire Audioquest Indigo speeaker cables

Treble -1db, and Bass +1 db

I'm finding that it is not as ear piercing bright as I first remembered it. In fact it is very listenable with good resolution.

Speakers just hit the 300 hour mark.

Is this the speakers breaking in? or is it my ears/brain finally going numb?

Probably both but mostly the later because people with experience with both can attest to Focal sounding more detailed and brighter.

that age old question: which is your choice .... 

focal Utopia III Evo

or

B&W 802 D4