So where are you leaning Peter? My room is 13.5 x 19 x 8 and the SS8's work, so did the HT2's and HT3's.
At the moment, I'm leaning strongly towards the HT2-TL. Jim was very generous with his time on the phone Tuesday and we hammered out my concerns against the pros and cons of the HT2-TL and SS8. I think the former will be such a dramatic improvement from what I have now that I will be very happy. I've mentioned before, around here somewhere, that I have some hearing loss and use digital hearing aids. It makes assessment and choice very difficult. I likely hear some things differently than others; not so much in freq response, but in sensitivity to irritation and fatigue. This is all in the mid to highs. The tweeter will be the biggest factor with mids next. Jim was confident that, for my purposes, the difference in upper mids would not be so significant between the models. I use a pair of Rythmik F12 subs with Audyssey MultiEQ XT32 room compensation, (strongest benefit in bass calibration for dual subs), so the low end is not my highest priority. (If I ever move away from calibrated sound, to a pre-amp with HT bypass for example, I can still use a bass eq system or even tune the Rythmiks as they have quite the flexibility in controls including a single band PEQ, three position damping, rumble filter, etc.).
Finally, the difference in weight and general practically factors in. I live in Alaska. Shipping a pair of HT2-TLs will be about $600 plus whatever the HT2 center will add, SS8s I didn't even quote after that. And we will be moving in 5 years or so back to the lower 48, so more concern about moving them and not knowing what the next room will allow for equipment.
They would be great in my current room which is ~ 25 x 20 x 8. But Jim said they really work in any room sound wise.
Given that you've now had both models (though I don't recall if your HT2-TLs had the RAAL), how does all of this reasoning sound to you (putting aside if you can your feelings about about subs and EQ!
)?
.....Peter