Sorry about the delay.
Now that I've had them for a couple of weeks, I can say that the M40s sound fantastic. Though I was never a believer in the concept of breakin, the M40s really took about 50-60 hours of solid play before things sounded absolutely "right". Then again, they were broken in on my parents' cheaper system, so go figure the speaker sound light years better on an Arcam receiver.
The M40s sound even cleaner at home than I remember, and again there's NO listening fatigue after having them on all day. The extra "sparkle" I heard on the M80s didn't seem to be missing at all. For fun, I did a comparison of the M3 vs. M40. I guess I haven't had "audiophile ears" long enough to appreciate the subtle differences described on Soundstage. To me, the M40's room-filling bass really adds a lot to the speaker.
If there's one piece of advice I can give a potential purchaser is make sure you have nothing less than a Denon or Yamaha-grade receiver. While a laid-back speaker, the M40 was pretty unforgiving of Technics-grade electronics (who'd ever think a speaker could give attitude?:))
What can I say? I LOVE the M40, and considering the sale in the factory outlet, a person could pick up 2 pairs of M40 blems and a VP150 for about $1000 U.S...less than the cost of a decent receiver, or a pair of snooty interconnects if you're into that sort of thing.
