thanks for the input. i checked out the epos ls3, but on paper, it had one of the higher "low ends." This is important as I won't have a sub for a while.

i'm not interested in cambridge and would like to audition paradigm, but can't afford them right now, or the von vr1's for that matter. anyone have experience with monitor audio (or a friend that has them) that wasn't necessarily with the silver series bookshelf?

i can't audition any of these locally. the only speaker i've been able to audition was the boston acoustics cr77. I liked this one, but want things to compare it to. I'm taking axiom off the list. What I will probably end up doing is buying one of the listed pairs along with the ascends so that i have nice return policies.