Dealer 1: straight to the 'what's your budget'. Dismissed B&W as 'toys', had sold the Sonus Faber Venere 1.5 (so a no show). Tried to sell me some truly beautifully made German speakers (by ASW) I think, but they did not sound as good as they looked. Ended up showing me some Triangle bookshelf speakers that were very transparent, but also quite bright. This was on the end of some high spec T&A electronics, that I was unfamiliar with. Overall: pretty useless for my purposes.
Dealer 2: very clever demo setup. All the electronics in the showroom hooked through to a listening room with 37 speakers to select. He picked electronics to be close to my Naim, sat me in the demo room and showed me how to hot swap speakers. So Cool. He pointed to the Dynaudio Excite X14 and explained why the X12 sounds woolly to me. Basically, my NAP 150x is not up to them, they need lots of power to control the bass, and I cannot provide this. Of those I tested, on Marantz amplification, the X14s were not in it. I liked some KEFs, Q500, R100, but the B&W 685S2 were pick of the bunch.
Dealer 3: A bit disinterested. Set up the Focal 906 on a Naim XS and left me alone with one cd. This dispelled my concerns about them being overly bright. However, no point of reference with the previous demo.
So, shame the Sonus Fabers missed out as local dealers are discounting them and they look good value. I would be interested to hear the 685 vs Focals as I suspect they are close. Therefore, with a significant price difference, the 685S2 looks to be in prime position.