I don't experience either the congestion or the head-in-a-vice nature to the sound in either of my systems with SET or SEP amps and I think the reason is: the HR-1, and the fact that I refuse to listen in small rooms any longer. I've lived with HR-1 for about 11 years now since I bought the first pair, and 9 years since I bought the second and I have learned how to tune and position them and they are amazing speakers with enough efficiency for the small amps because they have such a full and vivid presentation especially if you give them room to breathe. It gets better and better with the great preamps, the full voltage from the ZBITs and the amazing density and revealing nature of the ZROCK2s.  They were great with the Toriis I had, but the smaller amps make the HR-1 become more photographers than painters, that's how I think of them and how I enjoy the difference.

Lon, after very little time it’s more than obvious the magnificence of the HR-1’s is front and center apparent. So I definitely agree with you on its virtues, plenty of which I have yet to discover. Right off the bat, the entire bass region utterly and completely blows away the Omega single drivers I had. Nothing about them were even anywhere close when it comes to the low frequencies. I was disappointed when I had them, and now with the rich yet wonderfully detailed bass that I have experienced (and that’s not very much at all yet), I realize even more of what was actually missing with the single drivers. Not going back to THAT again. While the single driver is justifiably noted for it fantastic imaging and ability to realistically render vocals and gorgeous simple instrumentation, I’ve already found the HR-1’s equal those virtues and imaging even more so. So for me it’s a win-win across the board.

I don’t know which version of HR-1 you have, I’ve found out that mine have an updated crossover with upgraded caps which applies only to the midrange driver and ribbon tweeter and no longer including the upper driver; this among other effects reduced the over abundance of tgd midrange. The upper (active) 6.5” driver was changed from being inverted to a conventional one facing upward, also to address too much midrange. These changes and upgrades occurred sometime in 2018.

The Torii MK 5 gives me what I was missing with the Taboo (regarding speaker duty. I haven’t tried my Audeze LCD-4’s yet in the CSP3). Much better balls and force with headroom on top of that which was my main complaint with the 3.2w of the Taboo, better presence, much better immersion.

Right on, exactly.

It’s wonderfully subjective, to a point.

Burger said………
Amazed to see that almost 80% of the 1900 orders on the list are for SET amps.
Use a powered subwoofer and an in-line filter? Take a load off your AMP??
Is THIS the answer? Is this a BAD answer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65eFr2rKy3M”

Burger, this post from a few days ago has me thinking and researching.  It would be a simple task to buy a couple of the best capacitors known to man for a hundred fifty bucks or so and insert them between my CSP3 and 300B power amp.  

Currently I couldn’t be more pleased with the sound of my full range drivers hooked directly to my 300B amp, but now I am intrigued by how a single ultra high quality cap could change the sound.  I know for certain that I don’t want any crossover components between my amp and speakers, but this inline option seems to offer a much better alternative, and with very little expense.  Might this actually result in cleaner more transparent sound due to significantly reducing the lowest octave of the signal that is going to the full range drivers, and might this not have any negative impacts to the overall sound quality?  The risk is so low…….why not try it?  I intend to pursue this further.