This is my first post...
I heard a pair of ST RT's and they were by far the best sounding speakers I've heard. Not that this statement means much from me, but the ST RT's made me start to dislike my current speakers very much after just one listen. Until that one listen, my current B&W 805S's were my favorite speaker (that I could afford). Now I'm just suffering with them until my new Salk's show up...
Rocket: You will be happy to know that I went for the HT2's. After researching quite a bit, I was still very torn between the ST RT's and the HT2's. Even Jim's quote to me was "I could be happy with either speaker." However, there were 2 factors that drove me to spend the extra money on the HT2's. First, I have a very large room. It's about 6,500cF and even though I run a sub (SVS PB13-Ultra), I've always felt my speakers were too small. I sit over 15' from my speakers and they have to play relatively loud to get to my desired listening levels. I didn't want to push them too hard as I can start to hear the 6.5" woofer start to compress a bit around 80db or so (at my listening position). This always made me want a dual woofer speaker to make up for the necessary volume. Second was a call to Jim. He told me that he was working on a new HT2 that would utilize a transmission line design cabinet like the ST's. He also said he'd be making them from 1" thick MDF. This all added up to be too much for me and I pulled the trigger on them.
So 2 weeks ago, I purchased a pair of HT2 TL's with the 1" thick cabinets in "smokey silver guitar finish on English fiddleback sycamore". They'll be very dark as I wanted near black with some life to it. I expect they will be absolutely beautiful (to me anyway).
As far as the differences between the ST RT's and the HT2's, from everything I've read to date (a lot), the main difference is that the HT2's will dig a little deeper. The midrange may be somewhat "better", but it would be too close and too subjective to quantify. I was told by fellow forum members from another forum to just get the ST's and Jim Salk told me that 2 of his recent customers listened to both speakers and both picked the HT2's. See how confusing this is? I still don't know if I made the right choice...
On a bright note, I only have about 4-6 more weeks to wait for my Salk's... The wait is really starting to kill me...