I've been looking at upgrading the audio in my home office (currently getting my music there out of my PC via the onboard sound card to some horrendous Logitech speaker set). Have a budget of up to around 1.5K for a self-powered speaker system, with the focus mainly on the quality of music playback.

When asking around in shops for recommendations etc, I have been repeatedly recommended the likes of the B & W A7 and various other so called "hi end" and "hi fi" single speaker solutions. I don't claim to be an audiophile but am musically trained and was a decent violinist. I did a proper blind test comparing a set of Q Acoustics BT3 speakers and an A7, with both sets plugged into the same PC and playing the same song etc (courtesy to a buddy with access to both) and was frankly astounded by how easily I picked out which was the "proper" speakers and which was the A7. And yet the A7 is generally raved about by reviewers and publications - yet to my ears (I mainly enjoy classical music - especially chamber, orchestral and female vocal), the lack of stereo separation of the A7 was readily apparent; there was also considerable "muddiness" to the sound. In fact, I would go as far as saying that it didn't sound much better than many much cheaper systems. My friend later told me that the A7 is now essentially just a brick that he and his wife no longer use.

Is the A7 just overrated? Do I just not mix well with it or are these single piece solutions just so far behind similarly priced "normal" speakers? As for what I am ultimately going to get, I am still deciding.