In a nutshell....no I was not blown away. It definitely has more bass, but from the mids on up I felt it was close, maybe the edge goes to the Ref, but not by $1150 worth. So yes, outside of bass extension, I felt they held their own. I must say though we did not do direct A/B comparison between the two. The group was comparing the budget speakers in one group, and then the Ref1 and 626R in the other. Once in a while I was able to get them to put the cables in the 170 after the Ref1.
I wouldn't mind having a pair of Ref1's, but I would not pay $1500 for them. I would love to do a straight comparison with the Ref1 and a set of Ascends, and then throw in a nice sub. If you get a chance to listen to some Ref1's, I highly recommend doing taking it, so I know if I'm crazy or not.
I will say this, the Ref1 cabinet is gorgeous!
The speaker that I most recently heard that blew me away has been the VMPS RM40, $5000.
-curtis
