Speakers to hang on to for LIFE

I have a pair of Snell EIIs which I bought with the money I made working at a stereo outlet store the summer before college. They are the first thing I bought with money I earned and I still have them. They have been with me through college parties, across the country 1 1/2 times and in several situations, most recently in my home theatre system.

I have been meaning to sell them, even had them listed on craigslist for a while. But I am finding it hard to let go of them. I recently hooked them up to my 2 channel system, and they sounded great. They have a certain energy, and ease that I have really missed with my recent bookshelf based systems. Maybe part of it is familiarity - I grew up with these.

I've since learned that they are still highly regarded, and a good enough design for Audio Note to base it's AN-E very closely on. The EIII seems to be more discussed, but I've learned a lot of people, including AN's Peter Qvotrup
feel the II, Peter Snells last design is superior.

I am thinking of setting these up in a dedicated system although I'll have to remodel my house to do it :). I'm interested to see how they perform set up properly, on stands to help the midrange coloration. I'm also going to check out the AN-E as a possible upgrade :)

Bought a pair of JR 149's in the summer of 1977 and I recently got them back to their original home..great speaker based on the LS3/5A concept...always loved them...For the past 5 years I've owned Merlin TSM MMs and just moved that pair to the analog room and added a newer pair of TSM MXEs into the main system...guess I liked the original TSMs so much that I wanted a newer pair..Velodyne DD15 fills in the low bass with the MXE system...PSB woofy in the MM setup...it's all good and clean fun

rockports...anything that you can afford.

they do nothing wrong (ie no sins of commission). where they may make mistakes is in sins of omission (high frequency extension, 20hz rumbles ,etc).

well worth the effort to check out.

Anything made by John Fuselier. I own a protoype speaker calles the Darth Vader they are to die for.

I have two, my acoustat spectra 33 stored and my currently used and continuously modifying ESS heil 1D. I have found the ESS as the volkswagon of loudspeakers. You can modify so many parts to it as long as you keep at least the main drivers. Adding ess heil and tweaking the crossovers or even replacing them is also an option. I decided tweak the crossovers with dakiom stablizers and adding newer ess woofers and removing the passive radiator. I am now adding a THIRD ess heil driver as a linesource stacked. with TWO, the sound is unbelievably real as if the musicians are there with the right kind of equipment matching. In my case an integrated tube amp and a tube cdp. I plan on putting it even in another level by stacking 3 ESS HEILS. If you're an ESS fan, it's worth stacking the ESS heils if you can afford it. As much as i love planars and electrostats, a modified ESS heils to me is the most enjoyable I have ever owned. I have magnepans, acoustats, eminent tech, ohm acoustics, SLS, srslabs, klipsch, sunfire, bic, advent, dbx soundfield. I collect speakers. So far I have found my modified ESS as the most revealing and most realistic live sounding loudspeaker I have ever experienced. It blows away martin logan's and others in my opinion. My modified ess is awesome. It can handle power and the bass are super realistic and the mids and highs are so real, you think the vocalists and instrumentalist are in front of you.