I bought my Wharfedale Vanguards in 1991 - I had not graduated high school and they retailed for 2kCdn = they were Wharfedale's flagship floorstanding speakers - big rock speakers but not shouty a more reigned in smooth treble than what Klipsh was offerring at the time - most spekaers looked like the short and fat variety at the time and it was fun to listen to - polite and refined? No? But Polite and Refined can also mean laid back and boring with another set of ears so be careful. The Wharfedales were a touch on the boom and sizzle side as were the Klisph's - two traits i don;t care for - but the TRADE for a smoother midrange from some of the competitors was crap dynamics and a funnelly nasal sounding vocal band - imaging was better and you could sit farther away from dead center to get the same general sound(ie improved off axis response) - many still had the sizzly treble though. So the makers per usual look at the trees and not the forest. They hacked off several things that many spekaers were in fact doing very nicely on dynamics pace timing envolvement and look basically at imaging and the soundstage - most of which ow sounds homogeneous and compressed more than it ever was - but boy do voices come from the middle more now than before(even when they shouldn't).

The reviews have a tough time because to stay in business they need makers to keep sending them stuff and advertising - If we did have a "perfect" attainable sound then how on earth can one publication positvely review completely different sounding speakers from Horns, stats, line arrays and whatever the heck Vanderstten is all about. They are not reviewing against correctness but reviewing what they THINK some people might like.

I do the same thing - I recommend you listen to X speaker for an audition - some I would actually want to own and listen to for the rest of my days but many I think someone else might like and I think they're good at what they do but not really my cup of tea.

Everything gets good reviews - not everything is very good. IMO a good 90% of the stuff that gets good reviews to me isn't very good. 5% of the reamaining I would not want to own myself but understand why people like it the other 5% I would want to listen to music on. And it took 10+ years to find the good 10% and figure out between that what I wanted.