Here's my take as an owner of the 2s.
Very nice speakers, great SQ, love the ribbon tweeters. The imaging and soundstage is incredible. Listening to 2 channel music, my GF didn't believe me at first that the center speaker wasn't putting out any sound.
With all speakers, proper setup is crucial. These speakers do need some elbow room to sound their best, more than the average speaker. The low freq radiators are on the sides, so it is best to have about 2-3 feet of open air around the speakers. I have mine connected only with speaker wire (as GE reccommends), the subs are not connected with the LFE input in my setup. I keep my bass dialed in differently on each speaker. 1 is near the middle of a large room and it is set at about 11oclock. The other is towards the corner so it gets reinforced off the walls and I keep it at about 9oclock position. For music, this is great. For movies, for that punch in the gut, I don't even bother with trying to bump up the tritons, I let those duties get handled by an external sub, and I would suspect most people would want to do the same. In essence, I have 3 subs
When I auditioned these, they were attached to an ~$800 NAD integrated amp. They sounded great. Later in the audition, I checked on the sub volume knob and realized it was only at 9oclock. Of course I adjusted it up just to see what it would do. In use at home, I don't think I've ever found a need to go above the 12oclock position for any music. I do listen to a lot of electronic and hiphop with the low end, and I am most impressed with these speakers and the nice bass response they put out.
On a side note, a couple of items that nobody has seemed to mention that are also selling points to me, but could be subjective. I really like the plain-jane aesthetics (like all my equipment). I want to know that my money went to the sound quality and not to the aesthetics. When you see my living room setup, it is all black boxes and uninspiring, you would never guess that you are looking at a $10K to $15K setup. But, when the neighbors walls rattle, you know where the money went. Also, I really like the integrated grill up front. If my cats were to decide to scratch on them, they would only tear up the cheap fabric sock and not the speakers or cabinet. The grill is like a metal half circle all the way down the front. You could just about hit it with a baseball bat and still have speakers that operate correctly.