Pastuch,
I've been following this thread and I suspect the particular recording you are using of male vocals is at fault, or "horrid" as you termed it. The M22s, properly set up with great recordings has smooth natural uncolored male vocals, with none of the "fat", "ripe" coloration common to many speakers in the lower octaves and no sibilance unless it's present on the original CD. Even the Axiom M3 has a bit of a bass hump between 80 Hz and 150 Hz that makes it sound like it has more bass than it really has (without a subwoofer).
What is the recording of male vocals you've been using? It's very hard to find good recordings that are not EQ'd with a presence boost in the midrange. The one I've been using for years is a jazz trio recording with Harry Connick singing. (movie soundtrack for "When Harry Met Sally"). The vocal is completely natural, no sibilance, on any neutral speaker like the M22s, M60s, M80s, and very good on the M3s with a bit of the ripe quality that many listeners like and which many old beloved speakers from Advent, KLH, Acoustic Research, etc. delivered in spades, mostly because they used large woofer/midrange drivers that had rolled-off higher frequencies, sometimes by as much as 10 dB (AR). (I owned ARs for years in the 1960s).
I haven't heard recent Energy speakers except for the expensive Veritas line, which were very good and very similar to the M80, with a slightly more recessed midrange and a retail price three times that of the M80. The inexpensive Energy Take 5 series of small/sat subwoofer have a very zippy aggressive upper midrange that I found unpleasant.
Since Klipsch purchased Energy/Mirage/API, it's anyone's guess what they are doing with their product. I would hope they'd leave the better models untouched and not be tempted to add horn-loaded drivers to the line.
Regards,
Alan
