Just did a 3-way comparison between the Verite, Auteur and Abyss.... very interesting. Verite really splits the difference between the two headphones in a lot of ways.
Bass - Verite is right in the middle between the Auteur and the Abyss's all-out physical assault. Abyss still the king of subbass.
Midrange - Verite is in the middle again here, veering a little closer to the Auteur than the Abyss's more v-shaped sound. Definitely more resolution and refinement on Verite vs. Auteur. Abyss is a little cleaner, but 2x the price and more colored overall in this area with a larger upper midrange recession.
Treble - Verite is my favorite of the 3 in this regard. Cleaner and more resolving than Auteur and less spiked than Abyss on the amp I was using (Manley Absolute in push-pull mode). Overall treble resolution between Verite and Abyss is too close to declare a clear winner, which says a lot about Verite.
Stage - Abyss is the largest, which is no surprise as everything sounds huge out of it. Verite spilts the difference - if Auteur is 1 and Abyss is 10, Verite is like 6 or 7. Pretty similar to where it sat between Auteur and HD800, but in a little different way (HD800 presents smaller objects on a larger stage that are more spaced out, Abyss presents larger objects on a larger stage that are spaced more naturally, if you're unfamiliar with the staging difference between the two).
Clarity and Resolution - Auteur has the most noise and least resolution of the three, Abyss has the least noise and most resolution (which shouldn't surprise anybody). Going back to that 1-10 scale, Verite is about a 7.5 toward the Abyss side. But because the treble is a little less spiky and the upper midrange is more present, it shows a little more like a 9. Abyss just has a little edge because the background is so black and the resolution is so extreme.
Verite is the most comfortable of the three, being significantly lighter than the Auteur and not being a pain in the butt to wear like the Abyss. In a fully contextualized, subjective comparison between the three, I think most people would prefer Verite as the middle path. IMHO, YMMV, etc.