What I really want or less fantasize about is getting someone's flagship. As you can tell by my fantasies I am just past middle age, not sure it matters though.
What I need most out of speakers are realism, natural sounding, clear and precise. Bass wise I tend more to the fast, tight an again clear. A must is great imaging and soundstage. Imaging must be precise with each instrument owning its space and a wide soundstage, sometimes going beyond the speakers when available in a recording. I also like the kind of speaker that lets me here things in a song not heard before. I guess that will get harder and harder to accomplish but you never know. I want the speakers to have impact when needed but not artificial. It's music first, home theatre second. That being said, I haven't owned a speaker yet that didn't sound great for music that was a disappointment for home theatre. Non-powered sub mains have always been accompanied by standalone powered sub except for my Polk Sda 1.2tls'. I'm thinkin' Mr. Gross should know a thing or 2 about them.
The room they are going into is 13 1/2 ft. W by 22 L and 8 H. I would consider that to be on the high side of medium not quite large but what the hell do I know.
Money is an issue but not at the expense of what I want from a speaker. That doesn't mean I want to through money out the window.
So what do you think? The Aon 3 w/sub or the towers.
I can audition the towers and I will but none of the dealers I have contacted have the Aons'. If you know of one within 100 miles of 18058 zip code. If they have both that would be a bonus.

Joe

Tough one ... but based on your laundry list, I'd say get the Towers.

Closest dealers with Aons would be CSA Audio in Upper Montclair, NJ (about 85 miles), or maybe HiFi House in Jenkintown, PA (about the same distance). Sorry.

Want to say thank you a bunch. Went to HiFi House in Jenkintown, a great shop and sales folks. Had a listen to both the Aon 3 and tower 3s'. The room we listened in was close to the same size as the room they would be in and I have to say the Aons' were absolutely an eye opener. In many ways a monitor can keep with a tower. Now the tower 3s' were awesome but the Aon had most of the sound characteristics of the tower, maybe a bit less impact is all I could decipher, but that was without an external powered sub to help out.

Again a big thank you,
Joe

ps: please tell Mr. Gross goodbye Polk and hello GoldenEar

Excellent - that's great to hear, you're very welcome.

I'll pass your message on to Sandy