That's surprising Bob, I'm pretty fussy and used to play quite a bit of electric guitar back in the day, perhaps the HFs in my ears are a bit "rolled off" but I am skeptical because so many others find them to be accurate sounding as do I. Perhaps you need a pair of Maggies, which supposedly are uber-realistic. I agree with what others have said regarding the need of the M80s to breathe, depending on the size of your room, you may need to move them out a bit from the wall, at the moment I have mine around 2 feet out based on initial listening, however I am in a preliminary phase of speaker placement. Also, I find they sound better and better as I flesh out the sound system, e.g., 7.1 surround to me sounds much better than M80s alone, and Neo:6 or PLIIx beats stereo for music playback.

Well thanks for sharing, hope you succeed in finding what you are looking for, you clearly have worked harder than most to attain the perfect setup. \:\)

"If you try to turn toward it, you go against it."