Best Speaker for classical music

01-05-14: Wolf_garcia
The distinction between types of music relative to speaker design is silly. A well recorded jazz piano trio has every bit as complex and demanding a tonal pallette as symphonic music, and is only constrained or affected by level and room acoustics.

I disagree based on experience to the contrary. It's relatively easy to find speakers that sound compelling with an acoustic jazz trio or quartet. Feed them a 100-piece orchestra and listen to them serve up inarticulate mush. Throw in a pipe organ and 8-part choir and it's just sonic wallpaper.

I have just come off a fairly extensive speaker search. The Totem Arro's were compellingly alive, fast and transparent with small group acoustic and jazz. Throw them an orchestra and they sound just like what they are--small speakers struggling to resolve all the complexity, never mind the dynamics. The soundstage disappeared with the change of scale.

I chose Magnepans. They were the only ones in my price range that could keep Mendelssohn's "Elijah" cantata sorted out, what with full size orchestra, four vocal soloists, and a chorus singing eight distinct parts. Before I got these Maggies it had gotten to where all I was listening to was Holly Cole Trio, Diana Krall, James Taylor, Miles Davis, Gary Burton, Brubeck, etc. After I got the Maggies I was rediscovering my classical library, pulling out Beethoven's Eroica and other symphonies, Respighi's Pines of Rome, lots of Big Band (Buddy Rich, Stan Kenton, Count Basie, etc.) Bizet opera suites and Carmen itself.

Line arrays of all sorts (whether cones'n'domes, ribbons, planar magnetic or electrostatic) have certain advantages for large scale orchestral music relating to radiating surface and how it affects low level detail, control over inertial effects (ringing, overshoot), dynamic range, radiating pattern, and room interaction.

I've heard the Vandy 7s and 4s, Wilson Sophia 3s, Sasha W/P's, Alexia, Maxx, Alexandria X-2 and Alexandria XLF, plus B&W 800 and 802 Diamond. The Wilsons can do it, especially the big ones, but for a lot less money, so will Magneplanar 20.7s flanked by a pair of JL Fathom F212s. This is a room-filling full-range system for about $26,000, with phase coherence and a very low noise, highly dynamic presentation.

I listen to 100 piece orchestras frequently, always have, and have a well rounded background decades long in myth-free audio as a professional musician/recording engineer and hifi fan. I stick by what I say...for example, my current somewhat modest rig, using small driver coherant floorstanders and a great sub, can reproduce orchestras in my room with every single recorded note and tonal dynamic preserved and delivered to my ears with stunning fidelity and soundstaging, and at levels approaching ear damage. Again, obviously larger systems in larger rooms sound larger, but ask anybody who used LS3/5A based systems or lots of other small monitor speakers (or good headphones) and, although they obviously lack the slam and volume of largeness, to say that inherent orchestral dynamic nuance somehow can't make it from the amp to these speaker systems and out to your head is nonesense. Also, an acoustic piano, drum kit, and acoustic bass have together many thousands of tiny aural cues and overtone subtleties that easily rival any orchestra, if you care to notice.

That's what I use. They are simply wonderful for large scale orchestral music. My other speakers are rebuilt Quad 57s and I prefer the Shahinian's with orchestral music.

Maybe this pair of speakers could tackle the task.
70,000 Genesis 200 / 201 4-Tower Reference Speaker System in Rosewood

They look like if you have the room and proper power amps I would think they could play the music you requested quite well.

01-07-14: Wolf_garcia
I listen to 100 piece orchestras frequently, always have, and have a well rounded
background decades long in myth-free audio as a professional
musician/recording engineer and hifi fan. I stick by what I say...for example, my
current somewhat modest rig, using small driver coherant floorstanders and a
great sub, can reproduce orchestras in my room with every single recorded note
and tonal dynamic preserved and delivered to my ears with stunning fidelity and
soundstaging, and at levels approaching ear damage.

Wolf, you're also right, and I should have further qualified my statements to the
contrary. In the context of the original post, there are a lot of speakers in the
$25-40K price range that can do orchestral. In the cones'n'domes category I'd
add a vote for whatever Sonus Faber offers in the OP's price range. However,
although the range of overtones coming from a jazz trio--grand piano, drum kit,
and acoustic bass--are complex, they still don't require the sorting out on
playback of "The Planets" or "Elijah." My experiences with
the Totem Arros (no WAY can those do large ensembles unless it's in a closet :))
and GoldenEar Triton Sevens vs. the Magnepans illustrate what I'm talking about.

If a jazz trio (grand piano, 4 drums, 4 cymbals, and a bass viol played pizzicato)
creates a complex set of overtones, how much more so when you add in 50
massed bowed strings, woodwinds, brass, and a full percussion section? Add in a
pipe organ and cantata-sized chorus and there's a lot of sorting out to do with
incalculable overtones. There are a lot of speakers that can't track all that but
still realistically reproduce all the nuances of a jazz trio. However, anything in the
OP's price range should be able to do credibly play back large scale orchestral
music, and some better than others.

There is still an economical aspect of planars. Magnepan's top line 20.7 costs less than the Wilson Sophia. Add in a pair of JL Fathom F212s and the combo still costs less than a pair of Sasha W/Ps, while being able to fill a room better than Alexias and more like Maxx's, with bass extension to below 20 Hz.