Update, looks like it will be the monitor 7 or the 9, the 11 is out for now if I go Monitor
I compaired the monitor gear myself and loved it! I did notice 2 things that made me go energy. The monitors(the drivers) were moving much much more to produce the same output that the energy speakers could, and in the room I demoed them I could close my eyes and notice a verry verry soft "chuffing". I think that word is a bit too extreme for what I actualy heard but in testing speakers I closed my eyes for every test and tried to find an image in the sound. My minds eye could see the front firing port. I thought this may be due to the higher movement in the drivers.. it wasn't enough to bother me, but in my basement set up I thought it would be even more noticable. I actualy thoght the sound was more noticable as we moved up the product line which is then why I decided on the energy set up. I even settled for the rc50 for fronts instead of the 70's.
This could probably be solved with a good setting on the crossover for the sub you choose.
Just listen for this next time you go back and listen to them. If you dont' notice it then they are perfect, I would say they have a slighly more crisp sound than the RC series.
As for power you can see my thread on the energy set up. I would give them as much power as you can. I wouldn't go back on my system now, but I didn't have to bring the speakers a little bit in closer to reach the desired loudness level. And they are missing the grunt I felt they had with a more powerfull amp while at the store. I am only about 20 hours into breaking them in though!!
Only speakers I found to be better were the paradigm studio and up. I think much of this had to do with the copious amount of drivers used especialy in the center channel. It would also be many thousands more to make that move up.
