It is interesting what you wrote. I had a completely different experience.

I will agree with you that the M80 are very forgiving in the placement. I found that moving them around inside my room had very little if any effect on the sound. You could get a bit more base boom if you put them directly into the corner, but that was just getting silly.

I will agree that they are a fantastic sounding speaker. I did find them very revealing for the source material that I used. I have quite a collection of music, but found that 30% of what I had sounded awful from the speakers. About 50% of my music sounded pretty good, but that last 20% was jaw dropping fantastic.

They lies the problem with these speakers. They truly play you back what is recorded. If your source material isn't up to snuff, then you better just hit the eject button and try something else. It just won't cut it. Find something recorded great and you will be in sound nirvana.

But where I found it different. I can't say I have the most expensive collection of amps or receivers. But I honestly could not tell the difference between my old cheep Yamaha receiver and my latest Anthem amp with a dedicated pre-amp. Whatever I used, the good recorded stuff sounded fantastic.. the bad stuff sounded like it was missing any life. And the rest sounded better than any speakers I have had in the past, but not quite at that perfect state.

I will admit that I have never owned a tube amp, nor could tell you what one sounds like.

I will admit that I have never owned an amp costing over 4 digits. Perhaps that is why I have not experienced a difference.

I will also admit that I traded in the M80 within the 30 days and picked up the LFR1100. It did make a small bit of a difference. And as they require a pre-amp out and 4 amp channels to work, I can't really test them with my old Yamaha or Nakamichi. So unless someone want to loan me more equipment to try them out, I will just stick with my current Pioneer Elite with it's pre-outs and the Anthem amp.

But part of me still misses those M80 as they did sound awsome and for the price they are, WOW, what a deal.

Anthem: AVM60, Fosi DAC-Q5
Axiom: ADA1500, LFR1100 Actiive, QS8, EP500, M3, M3comp, M5