Best all around speakers

Good and lively discussion here, glad I started this thread, and it's interesting and imformative to learn the various points of view that people have on this subject. One thing I appreciate is that the discussion is getting beyond the "buy this, buy that" and getting more into the "why" some of you have made the choices that you have made. And to me that is more useful information, as it allows me to understand the process of getting ones audio system to place you want it to be.

Once again thanks to all of you, and keep your thoughts coming.

Musicnoise, what you meant to say in your quoted text is muddy, at least. We're talking about home music systems here, not live performance equipment and I still can't see where you made any clear distinction. Sorry for the misinterpretation.

I think we agree, but I'm not sure, that we both think that distorted reproduction systems really make little sense, even though many people choose them. I think this choice is often made because getting the sources right, particularly on a budget, is hard to do, so they buy distorted amplification to smooth over the shortcomings of their frontends.

Dave

There is no ambiguity in the text of the post to which you initially commented. I did not refer to live performances. All references to specific equipment and to systems in general were to home audio systems. The OP did not refer to live performances or live performance equipment. The examples of rock music that I referred to have been performed live and recorded in a studio. The plain language of the text was clear, did not reference other posts - other than that of the OP, and was not in reference to a discussion of other than home audio systems. Reading the post as a whole, in the context of the OP's question, there is no ambiguity in the sentence "There are really two broad schools of thought with speakers and sound in general" or any other part of the text. Hence, the text did not require distinguishing between live performance equipment and home audio equipment. A reasonable reading of the text would not leave one with a question as to whether I was referring to live performance equipment or a home audio system.

Musicnoise, I never said anything about live performance, so why are you talking about it? I talked about replicating a live performance. Get your panties out of your crack and move on.

Dave

That's because source material is recorded and mastered using all kinds of different-sounding equipment, such that there are all kinds of variabilities in the sound of source material--with an end result being that some source material is going to sound better with speakers of a certain "voice" and other source material will sound better with other types of "voicings"

This gets my vote for one of the wisest statements I have seen on Audiogon for months, may be years...

If more people understood this then there would be much less equipment frustration and flipping. With the best all round speakers you are likely to find that most music sounds good. A distorted/colored system may improve some tracks and even shine in a particular genre. One can think of it like good polaroid sunglasses...during the sunniest parts of the day or in a bright environment they actually improve your vision and work great, however, wearing them 24 by 7 and all year would NOT result in an overall improvement in vision.

When one goes to a dealer - chances are he/she has chosen a demo disc with tracks that work well through the system lens that he/she is selling. This is why it is a sensible idea to bring one's own discs and to bring a wide variety of music (not just audiophile selections). It is also why one must be prepared to accept that some particular tracks may sound better on one speaker/room setup compared to another but that does not necessarily guarentee the better sounding speaker is the best - the track may have been mixed in a way that it just works best on a particular setup with a slanted response...so the converse could be true when auditioning a wide variety of music.

This is one excellent reason to trust professionals and their equipment choices...after all, who else listens to all kinds of music, live and recorded, day in and day out! If many pros, each with a wide background and working with different genres, generally agree on certain gear as being "excellent" then you are pretty safe following their lead....the nice thing is that this still leaves you with plenty of choices...but it certainly narrows the selection down enormously to a few brands and often just a few models (particularly if you focus on mains monitoring and mastering)...anyway it takes some of the guess work out of the equation/merry-go-round. Sit back, relax, enjoy the music and if a particular track ain't quite as perfect sounding as you would like then you can always remind yourself, "If it is good enough for _______, then it is good enough for me!