The best speaker you ever heard?


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?
njonker
I recently heard the Raidho c3.1 speakers and they are the best sounding I've ever heard. Was great is they are relatively small and a great looking speaker.
Labtec, I think most of us who have been around this for years agree with you, however on a thread like this of fun, you typically assume that folks are feeding the top speakers a top signal. I would disagree that a great speaker will sound like the worst with poor quality fed to it. It won't sound it's best, but it can still sound better than a terrible speaker being fed with a great signal. Both would sound poor obviously, but I'll take the speaker as being the most important part of the chain with the font end being second. JMHO
Haven't heard that many speakers, but the KEF LS50 is spectacular. There may be a number of better speakers out there (its always a matter of taste) but I believe it will be very hard to find one that matches the sound, form and price of the LS50s.
A well set up MBL 101 (E and onward) radialstrahler is the most impressive speaker I've ever heard. At certain shows, wandering into the MBL room makes every other speaker sound like drivers and boxes. Their top end was unique IMO. I've never heard cymbals truly sound just like drum cymbals in a room, vs "hey, those tweeters are pretty good" type sound. (And I don't just find them spectacular in terms of the obvious soundstaging: I found their reproduction of a kaleidoscope of believable timbral colors to be incredible).

I also heard them at some more controlled set ups. Finally got hold of the small stand mounted 121 version, which aren't of course as spectacular, but they still have to my ear almost uniquely natural upper frequencies.

I've never heard Magicos though, and would really like to.