Good post. I agree with you about Klipschorn owners also enjoying the ML sound. I really like my ML Vantatges. They're visually stunning and sounded better than the khorn when I was in the sweet spot. The problem was that the sweet spot for the Vantages was very small. They are too dependent of directionality. I had to basically be sitting dead center and fairly close or the MLs sounded completely lackluster... laughable even. Imagine trying to show off my fancy new speakers to friends/family and coralling them all into a small cluster on the couch directly in the tiny sweet spot. [] How silly did they look... but it sure sounded nice!
Sometimes, I like to crank up the khorns and go downstairs and then outside to listen. I know that sounds strange but picture standing in line at a nightclub and how you hear and feel the music from inside. That's what I want to hear when I am cranking my system up. Doing that with the MLs resulted in almost no detail and not enough dBs to make even half of the "nightclub impact" as the pair of khorns.
I found the bass of the vantages to blow away the khorns in every way. Actually, I find the khorns lack of bass to be its one major downfall. It has the bass of an Altec A-7 or a panasonic "thruster". [:S] My cornwalls bass would best the vantages ...as I remember.
I've never heard the summits so I can't comment on them.
I ended up selling the one pair of speakers. Guess which ones I kept? Scroll to the video at the bottom of the post to find out.
My system is ever-changing. Here is the current system with an onkyo tx-nr1000 and VPI TT. Crank it up!
http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=3448cac&s=7