Jackman, only one set of speakers ever showed up in a timely manner, and using Jim Winey's three note process, sold.
One of my reasonable skills is in remembering what things sound like pretty long term, and being able to pick out the sound of one component in the chain of all.
I still had the B&W 800Ds fresh in my mind, and of course had my modified 801s and the Biro L/1s here as direct replacements.
The HT3s are so far above my expectations that it did not take a god to figure it out. Nothing else was coming except a bookself size set of timewindows, nothing all that stupendous to wait for any longer.
My initial setup proceedure was as follows, if anybody is interested.
First unboxed one. Put it in a reasonable position in the room. Played white noise and compared on HT3 to one 801 both on axis. Passed test, whilte noise smoother on HT3, deepest bass not as pronounced, no significant colorations from either. Tried the contour switch on white noise, found it made a useful overall presentation dip, probably right for "solid state sounding" equipment.
Next played one HT3 against one B&W 801 with system set to mono. One observation was that the HT3 played in mono with a "big image" just as well as the modified 801 did. The client who was helping me with the proceedure was surprised to hear the "big image" from a single mono speaker, he had not observed that before. It takes a special grade of electronics aind speakers to do that. Try it on your own system and then either grin or grimace.

Music in mono? HT3 played very much better than expected, smoother but at the same time significantly more resolving from top to bottom than the 801, exactly what I had been looking for.
OK its worthwhile to unbox the second speaker. Tests above were done first so that if the HT3 had failed, it would have saved me the significant time and effort to unbox and rebox and send back the pair.
Played the stereo pair of HT3s. No plinth, both still cold from the garage. Jim Winey's three note rule was amazingly obvious. The Salk speakers were winners all the way. Extreme bass power a little less than the 801s, extreme bass definition better than the 801s, everywhere else no contest, and a more refined and transparent and extended top end than the L/1s too and they are very hard to beat.
Finally the fit and finish and workmanship and overall looks of that of a $15000 a pair audio salon high grade speaker entered into the judgement too. They made my old 801s look like a set of dumpy black wash machines.
Was anyone going to come up with anything usefully better for me, very doubtful. Was time to just tell Jim Salk he was not getting them back.
Its been really fun. I had hoped for come kind of consisus from you all but in general there were about 200 recommendations for 200 different brands of speakers (although several for the HT3s).
Anyway I will have more to say about the HT3s as I listen more. And so far as I listen more I like them more and more, nothing negative to report on so far at all.
Hey they interview the race winner and he goes to the victory stand. This is Nascar, not Formula One with three on the podium. Not fair, but life is not fair. I did the best I could I think and got much better than I hoped for and by far the best value.
By the way Jim is getting a complete set of Ultra components in exchange.
Frank Van Alstine