Okay, today I visited my local Veritas dealer on the way back home, and briefly listened to the 2.3 and 2.4 floorstanders with my favorite CD's. While I agree that they are fine speakers, to be honest they did not impress me as strongly as they apparently did Craig. Granted, the listening room setting was rather mediocre -- although it was a well-isolated, good-sized demo room, sitting right in the middle of pairs of front speakers was this huge ugly box of 65" RPTV (sorry!). I am quite sure that the big box adversely affected the imaging and soundstage. That said, I didn't hear much better sound than what I have at home. In fact, what struck me was that the overall tonal character was quite similar to that of my Hales/Axiom combo. I now understand very well why Craig ended up with the M60's -- it's probably darn hard to justify the Veritas price, even with a direct A/B comparison at home.
Btw, the dealer had a nice cut-up model showing the innards of the Veritas -- the overall build quality, as well as the parts/drivers used inside, DID look very impressive. I also found there that the drivers are made-in-Canada.
I guess I am quite resistant to the upgraditis syndrome, so far.
