[zx10guy]

This is the issue with the demise of brick and mortar. The best thing you can do is to actually listen to prospective speakers with source material you are very familiar with. Same goes with evaluating TVs.

Everyone has their preferences in terms of visual and audio. Both of my plasmas are ISF calibrated and both of my LCD 4k panels have settings published by some very respected reviewers as what they set their review samples to. Many may feel the settings are too "soft" as they don't pop out at you. I prefer having natural and not over blown pictures.

One thing is a must is if you really plan on getting the best out of a sound system, make sure a subwoofer is part of the setup.

As an aside, I used to not mind being called an audiophile. Now a days, I kind of get annoyed with the term. You don't need to spend stupid money to get sound. The biggest factor in getting any kind of quality sound is addressing the room your system is in and proper speaker placement. I've gotten into heated debates on a B&W enthusiast forum where a poster thought they would get blind adoration on how they spent 5 figures on a set of 802Ds. While there are those that gave the attention the attention whore wanted, I was the opposite. I said the poster wasted their money by shoving those speakers in a cubby in a home entertainment center. I had the audacity to say I spent a fraction of the money this guy did and I would wager that my system sounds infinitely better. It's because I addressed the room acoustics and properly placed my speakers.