well, I kept hearing that the BIGGEST change to a system are the speakers.
I went to my dealer to decide between the GS10 and the KEF Q1 (david and goliath I know)
I did not A/B them, but I A/B'ed the BR2 I previously demo'ed and the GS10. I quote my dealer: "the RS series is twice as good as the BR2, the GS is about 40% better than the RS". Mathematically, I don't know what that adds up to, but I was really expecting a "night and day" difference.
The dealer started with the BR2, I remember thinking, "that's good music".
then the clincher ... the GS10 played. there was FOR ME about 5% change. certainly not worth 600bucks difference. So I ordered the KEF then and there. (I bought the KEF just because of its looks).
edit: the A/B system they did was manually moving the banana plugs from one speaker to the next. that to me was too long a procedure even when I gave them instructions to just use only the left channel.
apparently, I really really don't have good ears. probably from too much nearfield exposure of my subs.
I haven't A/B'ed the KEF and RS1 because the KEF took a lot of stand space ... it was a lot bigger than I thought. hopefully, I'll figure out a way of A/Bing them tonight, or maybe with the Polk Rti to have a better parallel A/B with the BR I did.