In my opinion, the speaker is by far the most important part of the audio system. After all, it is the only part you hear. OK, the other stuff really matters a lot, but without a great speaker... No go.
I am a bit 'speaker-obsessed' I guess, and now I am wondering: What are the best speakers you have ever heard, and what made them the best?
Shadorne, all of FC's products are amazing tuning devices ... the size of the speaker was not a criteria for me, although size has certain advantages, as was a life-like music experience. If that sound came in a smaller package it would have convinced me too. But you are right, the ease of control, dynamics, and tunefulness in the MM3 closed system powered subwoofers is easily one criterium that separates the boys from men in speakerland.
Those tuning devices play a BIG role in controlling and tuning base in my room.
Hales Transcendence 8s with VTL, Wadia and Cardas. Hands down the best system I have heard. Now, I know we are talking speakers here, but the other equipment will make or break it for the speakers. There are many possible recipes out there, so I felt it vital to list the whole recipe and not just an ingredient(a very important ingredient, but one none the less) to the music.
That does exist, however you need to have a very good complete set and a perfect - if there is such a thing - room. I think you can have that with different speakers, but so far I've only heard that in two rooms ever in my life. One of them is mine.
You must be one happy camper. I am a firm believer in the room. What acoustic treatments were necessary to achieve that perfect room?
The best speaker is one that is just not there. I mean a speaker that appears to be physically gone - vanished - a speaker that does not get in the way of the original music. The music is just there in front of you, or around you, depending on how it's recorded.
That does exist, however you need to have a very good complete set and a perfect - if there is such a thing - room. I think you can have that with different speakers, but so far I've only heard that in two rooms ever in my life. One of them is mine.
10-17-08: Atmasphere The drivers can be optioned with Field coil operation and there is a new first-order crossover using improved crossover components.
Does this apply to the smaller T1 speakers as well?
For years I have had the Classic Audio Reproductions T-3s. It has always been an excellent compromise on the various issues that beset a speaker- good to 20Hz, revealing, images well, smooth while detailed, etc.
However at the RMAF the new version of this speaker was unveiled. The drivers can be optioned with Field coil operation and there is a new first-order crossover using improved crossover components. The result is a transformation. I have not heard an ESL that can keep up with them and they have bandwidth, impact and ease of placement that an ESL cannot hope to achieve.
The speaker is 20Hz to 35KHz, 97db, 16 ohms and one of the most revealing speakers I have heard. Right now I would call it the best I have heard too.
Alnico has long been the preferred magnetic structure in loudspeaker magnets because the magnetic field sags the least when the amplifier puts current through the voice coil. This makes for a better sounding speaker.
It should be evident now that Field Coil is the rising star in high end loudspeakers. The only other driver technology that has similar low-distortion capability is ESLs. In both cases, as the diaphragm is energized by the amplifier, the motive field (magnetic or electrostatic) does not sag. This allows for a dynamic driver that has dramatically reduced distortion. Anytime you reduce distortion you reveal detail. So far all the field-coil systems I've seen are high efficiency, which is a good thing, but the technology can be applied with improvement to any dynamic loudspeaker...
The best loudspeaker for me, untill this moment Hansen Audio Prince V2
What I like most of this loudspeaker, is the way they disappear in the listening room. If you close your eyes, they are not there, and if you open them, you see the loudspeakers, but don't hear them. The music is where it's suppose to be. This are very emotional involving loudspeakers, with all the ingrediants you need, to enjoy the music, how it suppose to be.
This is one of the loudspeakers where I can truly say, that there are no compromisses made (for my ears that is)
Wilson Alexandrias and Vandersteen 5A's. A friend actually has them both (two sets of Vandersteens..one pair placed near for jazz, and one pair placed far for orchestra works. He couldnt make up his mind I suppose, so got it all
Klipsch Lascala.. I have owned well over 25 speakers in my life.. And in the past 20 years used the same source and amplification.. (only recently have i changed my amplification)..
In the past 3 years I have one (main) dedicated soundroom and in this time period I had the pleasure of trying 6 sets of different speakers..(Energy 22's, Koss DM 1030, PSB 800's, Klipsch KG4's, Paradigm 90p's, and Klipsch Lascala).. The winner for me is the Klipsch Lascala... I wish I still had all the best speakers from the past to finally try and see which would be best in this one room. I am sure Most of you know how much a room and placement can have on the sound of your system..
I have owned some very nice speakers in the past, such as Legacy Focus, Energy Veritas v1.8's, PSB Stratus Golds, Technics SB 7070's, to name a few. I wish I could get them all back and try them in my latest best suited sound room, to truly tell which was the best..
I also heard (in dealers setups) B&W 801's, JM Lab Utopias,and others with top of the line sources amd amplification, rarely have i been that impressed with dealer set ups..
But I do know that the Lascala's impress me more than any other.. for imaging, soundstaging clarity and dynamics..But is it because of the room? Which speakers of my past would sound better to me, today in this room.
I would also love to build a Golden Ratio Room have some of the best amplification, and source. then bring in over 30 pairs of the best speakers in the world and then give them the test.. That would truly be the real test to find the best speaker... But how likely is that to happen:) hmmm.. you never know:)
When it comes down to it the speakers have to compliment the system you have. I say listen to a lot of them plugged to your system. If it sounds good to tou buy it and don't listen to anything else until you are ready to make another purchase.
the amp & crossover components are far more important.
any 1-inch or less light weight diaphragm tweeter, with a lightweight but rigid 6.5 woofer, both with strong magnets, hopefully with lightweight copper windings in the voice coil.
both in a 1.5cu.ft box vented and tunned to 20Hz, will sound great. ofcourse the plastic box sounds diferent than wood box in the mids, also the foam inside to absorb the mids reflecting affects. also trumpet vs. direct sounds diferent, specially in the mids and highs.
if the crossover, is properly designed passive,active or digital, and if the tweeter and woofer have the right physical separation needed for the crossover slopes to join properly, 6dB 1 slope needs more separation 12dB/18dB/24dB/48dB 5slope needs less physical separation between the woofer and tweeter.
etc...
passive crossovers when they heat sound diferent also.
the best combos:
spirit absolute zero + peavey cs200x, when brand new was amazing, 2 days later when they broke in, sounded totally diferent. had to sell them.
jbl 4343 + mcintosh c32/c33, had weird collapsing mids, but great everything.
purchased the jbl 2405h tweeter, just to found out that sounds totally diferent with a diferent amp & crossover. with new diaphragms! broked-in.
tannoy system 2 with crown d75
most 6.5 + 1-inch loudspeakers have crossover points from 1.5khz to 3khz, from 6dB to 24dB oct. Q arround 0.7 BW.
its the kind of capacitors, or the kind of dsp algorithms, the amps or the diaphragm weight that makes them sound unique.
genelec 1031a its nice out of the box and broked-in
bigger diaphragms in the tweeter will give better mids arround 1.5Khz, but will give worse highs.
jbl l25p has a bit bigger than 1inch tweeter also most quested, dynaudio and m.audio bx8a have 1.1-inch tweeter
1.75" tweeter have great mids but ugly highs. same with woofers , 24 inch woofers have ugly mids. 15" have acceptable mids, 6.5 or 5.5 have great mids.
the magic its in the amps. + crossovers and diaphragm size and weight. from JBL control 25av, to RCF, DAS audio spain, to QSC, EV, behringer truth black, krk rp5, alesis, quested, emu pm5, event, etc... anything with strong magnets, good xmax. good crossover, & nice amps. will do just fine.
its nice to take a passive speaker and buy amps and a digital crossover, or digital EQ with filters, and by pass the passive crossover with your own digital settings. and custom amps.
In 1971 - 2-pairs of KLH9s, JanZen ESLs for center channel and ambience plus 2 K-horns used as subs. The K-horns had a high cutoff of 100 Hz and 40db of boost at 10Hz--I'm not making any of this up. Most will say that K-horns don't give any support below 40Hz--they might lose coupling with the room and they might lose efficiency but they will load the cone all the way down. In this case, the K-horns were transformed from a, say, 80% efficient speaker into a 0.1%, or so, efficent speaker. The effect was terrifying. Source was an Ampex 350 and 15ips dubs from the original masters. The only thing even close were Tannoy Autograph Pros (dual 15" dc)
Beveridge 2SW2 (coherency), Hill Plasmatronics (holographic imaging), Rogers LS3/5a - 15 ohm variety (my first foray, mid-late 70's, into high-end), mbl 101E (great system synergy in all mbl reference rig) and Bev Model III's (my current transducer).
Wow, so many speakers, so little time. I heard thousands and owned hundreds so it is difficult to compare them all as the room, setup, components, and source material were all different. Add to that I have changed in my listening tastes and even hearing changes as you age. Having said that, right now I have a pair of Dunlavy C-IVs that sound incredible as well as a pair of little known Digital Phase AP-4s which might be even better. A friend came over today and we A/B'd them for a bit and both felt te AP-4s were a bit more accurate and dynamic. The SC-IVs though have a certain musical quality in the sweet spot that is very seductive just 'right'. Longer term listenng to both will definately be required as space constraints dictate I only keep one. I have to concede though; the journey can be as enjoyable as the destination at times...
How about the best full range driver loudspeaker. And for me its been new SEAS exotic. Can produce HI-SPL can run on low power can be used near field or in large space, bass is strong detailed non resonate since driver does best in AS cabinets. No port noise, no BLH colorations, pretty cool. Point source, phase and time correct, sounds great off axis, even better in sweet spot but still images when one sits far off axis. Trebles clean detailed never heard such out of any full range. Plus the detailed real sounding mid range. If I watch TV with the SEAS my dogs bark at every door knock, door bell, horn honk,car or truck noise etc. They are only fooled by the SEAS and my massive front horns other loudspeakers I use dont triger this. Since sound is real sounding to even a dogs ears SEAS exotic must be doing something right.
Boy, great question. I really like the B&W 801's, but I remember years ago listening to some huge McIntosh speaker set up. I mean, huge. Six foot midrange / tweeter panels per side and separate subwoofers for each channel. It was incredibly smooth, defined, and spacious sounding. Bottom end like I have never experienced before. Anyone know the speakers I am trying to describe here?
I also remembering being in love with a set of Apogee Scintilla's. Oh, and EPI 1000's were pretty nice too. This is really a tough question. Martin Logans, Maggies, Quad ESL 63s', so many to choose from.... so little time... Sonus Faber... makes a line of incredibly good albeit expensive systems. Beautiful finish.
Oh, and the Wilson WAMM.... breathtaking speaker... Hmmm could go on and on.
Mtkhl, yes. Long ago I thought I was pretty close to realism then about 5 years ago I thought wow this is now much closer. Then about 3 years ago, etc. I am running out of life time, but enjoying the rewards of my effort to find the best equipment for realism. It is very fragile as I recently found.
Guys, I made a response earlier and either somehow forgot to send it or had it blocked. It was primarily a response to Mike, saying why I found all speakers I have listen to to be compromises and that what I want and will never get, is a point source, fully range, no crossover, high efficiency speaker. Until then I have to choose which of the above are more important to me. After years of single drivers with high efficiency, I am back to a two way with a very limited crossover but lacking the efficiency that I would prefer, forcing me to sell my Reimyo PAT777.
I will forego my previous comments about the H-Cat amp other than to say it makes me realize that electronics may be equally compromised as speakers.
Any way, as others have said, I have adjusted to the reality that I have to be happy with great performances and something close to realism.
Detlof, i agree that 'live' music can humble reproduced music.....but not always. in fact; the odds are dramatically against 'live' music sounding very good at all in most venues. either too loud, or lacking focus, or not in balance, or bad listening position, or outdoors and lots of issues. 75% of live music have at least some of those issues in my experience. our brains can compensate for sound problems and we can still be swept along with the live performance.
OTOH the 'live music experience' cannot be duplicated in our homes.
there are a few local Jazz clubs and smaller recital halls which do offer consistently excellent live music performance.
regarding 10hz; my experience is that 10hz which has distortion is lethal and a bit scary; but 10hz which is controlled and effortless is really wonderful. it's more a feeling than something you hear. recently i made some adjustments to speaker placement and my bass settings which made subtle but significant improvements to my bass accuracy. it made a huge difference in the coherence of deep bass.....which allowed my body to stop tensing up when i knew that very deep bass was coming.
Detlof, I'm totally with you that there is no speaker system that can reproduce an original event 100% despite some claims to the contrary. Anyone who doesn't think that is the case I would advice to go to a live concert of any kind, but large stadium rock concerts really drives home the point. Some of my favorites live events are:
Pink Floyd at Wembley Stadium, The Nelson Mandela concerts in same stadium, Guns n Roses at Feynoord Stadium Rotterdam. I think the difference was probably the amount of adrenaline rushing through my blood helped by a healthy dose of expectation, weed and/or alcohol. Irreproducible.
But since I don't have that expectation from my system, I am quite happy with what it can do. And occasionally, when the wife and kids are away, the volume ... ahum the pleasure control ... can go up and brighten those amp eyes to the max. That can get my adrenaline going a bit, but its a long way off from real live. I'm already happy when music played through my speakers gives me goosbumps ... that's all I expect of my system to do very very well. And it does, very often!
To all audiophiles out there, the goosbump test is the only real "objective" one out there IMHO. You need to be in the right state of mind, but if you are, and there are no goosbumps, then continue your search...
Mtkhl567, don't worry about MrT. He has the compulsion to place what I call his mantra, whenever he thinks that the opportunity arises. Best to ignore it.
Me, I'm still happy with my big Sound Labs. (: For me they are "best". All the same, I have to agree with Norm. If my ears are still full of the sound of real live music, a cloud of unhappiness settles around selfsame, should I fire up my rig. It is best to wait a while to regain happiness and this has been the same with all the speakers I have or shall still own. And I doubt that even Mike's room and a 10hz reproduction, (which would scare the living daylights out of me by the way, 16hz are already quite scary), would heal my of that occasional affliction. The fate of an audiophile who loves going to concerts.
but I have not been very happy with any speakers I have owned.
Norm, that is a crying shame. i suppose we all have our own particular definition of 'happy'. i don't want to put words in your mouth.....so i would appreciate you expanding on your above comment.
you have tried every tweak out there; and more different pieces of gear than anyone else i know. why do you think you have not found speakers that make you happy?
too high of expectations?
room acoustics?
are you more interested in investigating performance of other areas?
i am not busting your chops here but your comment was concerning to me as i have lots of respect for your listening opinions.
btw, staying 'on-topic' i would say that who knows what speaker is 'best'. since best infers 'best in all contexts'....which is a silly idea. OTOH the best performance from a speaker i have heard is the Evolution Acoustics MM3's in my room over the last month or so. possibly lots of speakers might thrive in this environment too.....but that's another question. right now...this is amazing. they are completely coherent and holographic, flat to 10hz in my room, dynamically alive, nuanced and involving, supremely detailed, and effortless in their presentation. a window into the music.
Mr Tennis, obviously you didn't read the title of this thread, or maybe you forgot, after all this thread has been going on for a long time. The title is, just to remind you: "The best speakers you ever heard". That means Mr Tennis by definition that ALL the answers by the posters are correct, and are indeed the best speakers that the poster has heard PERIOD. So everyone is right, as opposed to everyone is wrong as you are trying to assert.
The best speakers I HAVE EVER HEARD are my Evolution Acoustic MM3's, I am not saying its the best speaker ever, nor better than speaker XYZ, but IT IS THE BEST I HAVE EVER HEARD. And that Mr Tennis is a CORRECT answer to the title of this thread!
Alec, long ago I owned the Watson Labs. I sold them to a guy in Dallas. Much before that I had the Dayton Wrights mentioned by Essentialaudio. I thought the Watsons were better but then again the Dayton Wrights were very hard to drive and solid state amps had improved by the time I got the Watsons.
I don't remember why I sold the Watsons, but I have not been very happy with any speakers I have owned.
with the diversity of opinions so far expressed, it is obvious that there is no best speaker.
i am surprised that anyone would assert that a particular speaker is better than any other speaker, at a given price point, when such a determination is so subjective.
we all have our favorite speaker, but none is the best.
Alec124c41, you're the first person I've run into also with Watson Labs Model 10s. Excellent in their day but no match for more modern speakers. The Dayton Wright XW-10 subwoofers for the XG-10 ESLs (also own this combo) are virtually identical to the WL Model 10 bass modules, incidentally. One of these days it might be interesting to fire up both sets of speakers and make comparisons.
I guess the best speaker I ever heard was way back in the 1970's; a pair of Crown ES-224's at an audio show in Dallas. Two cabinets, the lower housing two 10" woofers, the upper 24 electrostatic elements. They were so impressive.
i thot before i entered the room that a woman was singing via a mic or maybe very loudly a capella. then i saw it was speakers, i walked all around the room and the sound field was so realistic i wanted them on the spot
Other speakers will do this. ATC for sure, but also many other speakers designed with as much care for the off axis response as for the typical flat on axis only designs. It is a shame but most people ignore off-axis response even if it is well proven to be a cornerstone to natural sounding speakers. Manufacturers know this and respond by concentrating on designs that have more extension (great highs and lows) - after all that is what sells.
The stuff coming out of Dr. Floyd Toole's work in the 70's => Energy Vertias 1.8, PSB, and Mirage are worth checking out.
On the whole during the 80's, there was a lot more attention to off axis response as opposed to the modern emphasis, which has migrated to bass extension and super-tweeters flat on axis to bat-only audibile frequencies...stuff that is only important on paper or in "my speaker freq response beats your speaker" threads. The midrange has been sadly forgotten in the battle of highs and extreme lows. Check out 80's designs - some are still made today - much the same as they were back then...
N7369p, I totally agree with you, those mbl's beat everything I ever heard. I have a hard time understanding how some don't hear what they do!!! I hope some day if china copies any speaker it'll be the mbl's.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
