improving my system, please help

I agree with Sedond, I would be hard pressed to give up my Air Tight tube preamp. My bad... I missed the keyword 'vertical' in the previous thread.

I'm with Aragain. What's the problem? You don't say that you're unhappy with the sound and you just got the system. Get to know it a little better before you worry about upgrades. You might try some acoustical treatments first. Or play with speaker positioning. Your stuff is very good, live with it for awhile and learn its sonic signature, both piece by piece and as a whole. Enjoy it, I'm betting it's a very enjoyable system!

Agree totally, play acoustic treatment first. Until you realize how your existing system sounds, then decide to stay or upgrade. Med-Fi in a good room sounds better than Hi-Fi in a bad room. People spending hunreds on a power cable but zero on their walls are not very wise. Treatment is a must for high revealing system, like yours.

Electrostats have to be pampered to sound there best; they are a demanding speaker to get sounding right. 1.) they tend to be far more sensitive to speaker placement than many other more "conventional" electrodynamic transducer designs simlply because they are dipolar in nature. Play with speaker placement, read the owner's manual on positioning, etc. 2.) I'm not a big fan of AC conditioning in most systems; However, since electrostats plug into the wall they can make AC "grunge" audible through there panels. So a power conditioner may help. 3.) I'm not sure on your amp (whether its tube or SS), but Solid-state is generally a little better suited for driving speakers that present very low resistance at certain frequencies like the electrostats. 4.) There was a thread in the past 72 hours entitled something like "speaker cables and ESL" which it cites an article and which I posted another excerpt showing how cables can make an improvement with designs like the Quad ESL. And Lastly, like others said, experiment with the rooms acoustics. You may not have to buy acoustic treatment, depending on your furniture and the room and how you arrange things, you can still get good results. A large bookcase with books of different sizes will diffuse sound, a tapestry on the wall will help absorb it, etc. Good Luck!

The fact that you are looking to improve your system tells me that you are not happy with the sound that you are getting. While there is a lot of merit to the suggestion that you live with the present system for a while, my initial impression is that your system is not a well balanced one, according to the system building philosophy that I, and I stress "I", think should be followed.

The more revealing that the speakers are, the more clearly they will tell you about the weaknesses, and merits, of your electronics. Put simply, and IMHO, your electronics are not good enough for your chosen speakers. Electrostats(ML)are very revealing, and while I am not familiar with your amp, my fairly extensive experience with different brands of ESL's has taught me that THEY LIKE TUBE AMPLIFIERS. Others might disagree. The CJ pre, even the PV5, is really too colored and far, far, better is available for not a lot of money.

As far as subs go, DON'T GO THERE! Not until you have a better handle on the core of your system. Been there, done that with ESL's; a major can of worms. With the right electronics, I can't imagine really needing one.

I'd like to respectfully suggest that you are trying to do too much too quickly, best of luck and keep us posted.