Best all around speakers

08-15-08: Musicnoise said:

"... the amount of distortion desired or unwanted comes into play." and "There are really two broad schools of thought with speakers and sound in general. One is to build the most accurate system possible, the other is to treat the system as a musical instrument in and of itself."

This view boggles my mind. How can adding distortion on top of distortion replicate a performance say, "Sympathy for the Devil"? If the recording itself is full of distortion, then don't you want to hear what the artist intended??? I don't see that as a valid approach at all. A system like that couldn't reproduce anything well, IMHO.

If you want to reinterpret the recording, then load it into a music suite and modify it to your tastes, but then play it back through an accurate system, rather than a crap shoot, distorting system.

Dave

I hate to think you're right, Mapman, but I can sure think of a number of times after adding a new piece of gear when I've thought "Ah, this is what I needed" and yet a few months later I've figured out that there is this or that problem with the sound that sends me out searching for some and different piece of equipment to "improve" things.

Music to equipment makers' ears...

This is such a subjective hobby, I really got into this hobby when I accidentally heard some Magnepan 1.6r's when I went into a high end audio shop with a buddy of mine. He was looking for an expensive video set up, and we both walked out with Maggies. They just had such a different sound from anything else I had/have ever heard. Since then I have owned and listened to tons of different speakers, but I always come back to the Maggies. To my mind, only Vandersteens and well set up Klipschorns are in the same league as far as all around musical ability.

I currently own 3.6R's (for the second time) and couldn't be happier. I love to change out the upstream equipment because they so vividly reproduce what is upstream, it's really fun to try and "get it right".

My listening tastes are primarily vocal jazz, classic and hard rock, and I could not be any happier with the SLAM of these speakers. Although, I still believe that the best rock speakers I have ever heard are Klipschorns.

Well, that's my opinion, the Magnepan 3.6r's are the best all around. If you add in price, I think they are a slam dunk. I have never seen any speaker with better overall reviews. The fact that Magnepan has not changed them in nearly 10yrs says quit a bit about the design.

It's subjective as Macdadtexas points out. Let me add it's also personal and for me that means small room dependent. Six years ago I moved my system into a small dedicated listening room and started searching for a speaker that worked well there.
After giving up on monitors I purchased a pair of Meadowlark Kestrel Hot Rods. These speakers have been with me since as they produce music in a way that makes me forget I'm listening to my stereo.
Don't get me wrong here, in the five years or so I've owned the Kestrels they have spent a lot of time in the closet as experimentation has been the rule. My room has hosted some exceptional speakers costing many times what I paid for the Kestrels. And yes they wow me for a few months with resolution, deeper bass, more detail or whatever audiophiles listen for. But that eventually wears off and the Kestrels will be returned to make me wonder why I keep searching.
In a larger room some of the speakers I've owned would probably kick the Kestrel's butt. In a small room though I've found them to be the best overall speaker I've heard.

Dcstep: You misconstrued the content of my post by inserting your own thoughts within that post and making connections that were not present but rather were distinguished. The statement regarding sympathy for the devil was a separate and independent statement unrelated to the statement regarding a system purposely chosen for distortion or how distortion affected sound. The statement regarding the song had to do with spl listening levels, described as one factor that would logically influence the choice of one set of speakers over another in that particular application. The sentence specifically referred to volume levels and did not mention live performance or distortion. You drew a link as to distortion and a live performance that was not in the text. I did not say that a distortion based system was in any way connected to reproducing the sound of a live performance of a stones concert - that was your statement, not mine, so I have no idea how distortion would recreate the performance. The second sentence you quoted, about distortion, followed a general statement as to two broad themes in building systems. I stand by both statements. A lot of folks purchase tube systems and speakers that clearly have distortion and clearly are meant to, whether the purchasers know it or even care about why the system has its particular sound. This is particularly true in the single tube amplifier designs. These purchasers want a tube sound. The tube sound primarily comes from the distortion characteristics of tubes. I agree that a better approach to tailoring the sound of a song is to make adjustments with software. I also agree that choosing a system with certain distortion characteristics is a crude way of achieving a particular result for a particular piece of music. The biggest drawback with the distortion based system is that everything pretty much sounds the same. I am not currently a tube enthusiast or an analog source enthusiast, but rather prefer digital sources and solid state because I believe that accuracy is best achieved with those technologies. That being said, the relative merits of a distortion based system, chosen for a certain overall sound, vs a system chosen for accuracy in sound reproduction, and the method of creating or reinterpreting music by using such a system, are separate issues from the broad classifications to which I referred. While these are arbitrary classifications, I believe the classifications are valid (note - a different idea than saying that that the goals and methods of either class are themselves valid -to which I here offer no judgment). Furthermore, I believe considering these classifications may be helpful to the OP in making a speaker selection.