My first experience was quite different, and it may be worthwhile for one or the other to have it explained briefly.
First to the history: I was a ML listener since very long, started with Quests in the early 90-ies, so I'm used to the ML characteristics. I wouldn't call myself an audiophile expert, not at all, but sure I have some feeling for speakers. I had dropped my audio interests nearly completely for some years, until I established a nice home theater 2 years ago. I wanted to have good audio, so my automatic route was going ML again. I purchased a 5.1 set from 4xClarity, Theater i, Descent, with which I was quite satisfied. Although I initially listened only to movies, I soon acquired a taste again also for music, and started to wish for optimization. I invested in room dampening (which probably gave the best result/$ ratio of everything I did), and I became annoyed by the fact that in listening to music I found the sound just from steroe better than from 5.1. This annoyed me purely in my engineer's efficiency sentiment, because I felt it a waste of technical investment
I then started 2 simultaneous routes for music improvement: I expanded from 5.1 to 7.1 and purchased a sophisticated surround processing with my Lexicon, and I considered exchanging the Clarity front speakers for the possible case, that I still would want most music only through the two front speakers, or only with a very minor contribution form the surround field. This consideration to exchange was fueled by the advent of the Summit, because they are new and hightech, which typically warms the heart of a tech gadget lover, and they were no such monsters as the older higher level ML speakers, which I would not want to have in my moderately sized room (even the old Quest I woulod today no longer want with regard to the size). After some time of thinking silently about this, I had got used and comfortable with the thought of losing the money, and wanted to use a vacation in the US for listening to one.
Sorry for the long digression, now I come to what I wanted to tell: I rushed into the first dealer's showroom, who had the Summit on display, and they switched them on.
Boy was I disappointed at first glance!
I'm not sufficiently familiar with audiophile terms anyway, and specifically not in a foreign language. But I would say, that although the room appeared not overdamped, the music sounded for me way too dark. I can measure only against my imagination of a reality, and therefore I listen typically to small ensembles with e.g. a piano and a human singer, for which I believe to have a feeling of how it may sound in nature. And even trying hard, I could not imagine that the singer was real. Again, the dealers showroom at first glance looked well done, so I cannot simply blame them. But overall it was just a big initial subjective disappointment for me.
A rationally acting man would have turned from the shop and gladly saved the money. But for a tech gadget junkie's soul a new equipment has a similar meaning like what for a woman sometimes the new fur coat may mean
So I stayed and my fall back strategy became to no longer seek for absolute quality, but to try to measure the Summit relatively to other speakers. So by chance first I compared to a set of Vienna Beethoven and Sonus Faber Grand Piano. This comparison was done already by another customer in the shop, and he very clearly put the Summit third place. When this man had left, I compared them again, and I was glad to find that in my subjective feeling, the Summit was the least "dark" sounding speaker, and it had improved trnaparency and spaciousness, relatively. I was glad because this reinforced my since long not scrutinized choice of ML speakers.
Next I compared the Summits to a pair of Clarity, because that was the initial decision to be found for my home. The difference between both pairs was quite strong, stronger than I had anticipated. In the meantime (about 1 hour) I had got a little bit more used to the overall sound characteristics, and found the Summit no longer so disappointing, but still not at all overwhelming. But when we kicked in the Clarities (in order to do no inadequate comparison, we had muted the summit's bass a bit), then the music quality fell back to a degree, that I could not imagine, how I could like my Clarities at home so much. With the Clarities the sound image virtually collapsed and became dull.
I found interesting, that my wife, who has no technical knowledge at all, but is a hobby musician, shared all my described impressions to any detail.
The rest was a no-brainer. I negotiated in parallel with the dealer on a good price, and with my wife on about how good and indispensable a deal we had got offered. So after altogether just about 2 hours my credit card had significantly been shrunken, and to the same amount my anticipating joy for what happens in my home in 2 weeks had been blown up
Long story's short meaning: Completely other than with your own experience, my first dating with the Summit has not resulted in a love story on first sight, but possibly a long lasting happy relationship will grow from it nevertheless
