On the way over to the two stores visited I tried to quantify what I didn't like a little more. I think its all in the upper bass. I listen to a lot of talk radio and even on female voices I notice that boomy/muddy quality creeping in.
A quick search shows that the vocal range is 80Hz to 1000Hz and that the female voice fundamental is somewhere in the 150Hz - 250Hz range.
From that I gather my primary issue is in the sub 500Hz region. I am willing to bet that the speakers in my Escort had a fairly high roll off that eliminated this region so I perceived better quality. I was getting all my bass information from the harmonics.