Well it's been over a week with me having the new speakers so I'll go ahead and post my thoughts now. You can check out what I thought of the 5Bs vs. the 532s in the "New 5 series Line thread."
For a short background you should know I'm not what I'd consider an audiophile, more of an "average joe" that just likes good sound. My interests are about 50/50 with music vs. movies and TV. Also I'm using an Onkyo 705 receiver. I'll be comparing the 10D to the S10 I returned.
To start off I'd like to say the 10D sounds awesome. Great lows without sounding too "boomy" and I can feel the bass noticeably more than with the S10. That being said I don't think the sound quality is enough of an improvement to be worth the extra $300 it costs. The quality of the sound isn't a huge improvement over the S10 if at all and it still balks at high volumes with a lot of bass (I am talking very high volumes though). I decided to test it out with an HD rental of Matrix Revolutions via my Apple TV and for shits n giggles I punched it up to +14 for volume on the sub (the sub setting on the receiver is set at 0) and had the whole thing playing pretty loud. When the ships in the movie are pushing hard there's a whole lot of rumble going on and the 10D tended to get more than a bit distorted. Admittedly this is not at all a normal volume to listen to something like this and the S10 would distort just as much if not more but for $800 I was hoping for better quality.
One thing I definitely love about the new Bravus line is the size. These things are friggin' tiny! With the placement in my room the S10 stuck out quite a bit and always annoyed me a little but with the 10D not only does it look a lot smaller but because it's sealed I can place it closer to the wall without worrying much about sound quality. The curves are beautiful and having the two speakers on the side and the controls and cherry finish in front really looks amazing. The down side about the looks (at least in cherry) is that the wood grain mismatches really badly unlike all the other Aperion speakers I've had. With the way the light hits it in my room and where it sits it's pretty noticeable and bugs the designer in me. Here's a quick cell phone picture to show you what I mean.
I'm not sure if that's the norm or if I got a bum finish. I'm going to live with it for at least a couple more weeks but I'm not sure yet if the pros (small size, mostly good looks and great sound at normal volumes) outweigh the cons (balks at very high volumes and wood grain mismatching) yet so am unsure if I'll keep it or return it and get a bigger/uglier, but better sounding sub from somewhere else. I briefly considered the 12D but can't justify spending that much on a sub right now. If Aperion's upgrade policy applied to subs I would probably just keep the 10 and upgrade later to the 12.
If anyone has any questions or things they'd like me to test just let me know.