Finally finished, at least as far as I'm going.

Look decent, but I will NEVER use water based Minwax poly again. That stuff is just complete junk. Back to the oil based for me. I never could get a good finish with it on these. They look decent from the listening position, which is good enough.

I found on carpet they are very front heavy, and ended up putting the rubber feet that comes in the kit on the front of the cabinets (bottom of course) and leaving the rear ones off. This makes them nearly level front to back. Maybe some spikes would be in order, but for now the feet will do.

On to the sound. Never having heard a pair of these I was surprised by the bass. Very tight and low. Dire Straits sounds very nice!!! The soundstage is quite good and vocals sound very nice. All in all a good speaker. They definitely blow my Heresy's out of the water. FWIW I'm running the 1st order Xover, but have the 2nd order bits on the board as well with euro-style connectors if I ever want to try it.

Thanks Fred for the cabinets.

No this is not my stereo setup, BTW. My good stuff (to me) is in the bedroom, so I'll have to move some of it out to the living room.