I cannot honestly answer this thread nor do I believe everyone can either due to the fact that unless you have owned every single flagship model of every past and present design, you can only make an educated guess?
The people making comments including myself, no matter how experienced have limited comparisons. There would be other loudspeaker design we would consider if we heard them irregardless of taste. I happen to love the sound of omnipolar designs like ohm's which i own, elac, mbl, german physik, decware, ess, duevel, etc. which i don't own and way out of my ability to obtain. I also love electrostats and planar ribbons and anything that is line source design.
Genesis, vintage infinity, nola, beveridge, mcintosh,pipe dreams come into mind and planars like transmission audio.
my choice of all of the most expensive design which i doubt i'll ever hear like those mentioned is the german physik flagship GAUB at over $200k and at over 1000lbs each.
pound per pound and affordability, i will choose the ohm walsh 300 mk2 or walsh 5. Not a single OHM is priced at over $6000 on their flagship. You'd be lucky to get a DUEVEL for under $10k and the same for a german physik.
In my opinon, some of the best consumer friendly designs are ohmspeakers, magnepans,ess, eminent technology, decware, axiom, orb, mirage, anthony gallos and the discontinued srslabs klayman signatures. There are others, but these come to mind. Companies like von scwheikert,wilson,magico,avant garde,B&W, dali, kharma,soundlab,AHL tolteq, vandersteen, mcintosh, beveridge, martin logan, genesis, nola, pipedreams, mbl, german physiks, transmission audio, MJ loudspeakers and others are beyond the average audio enthusiast ability to obtain.
I am a used and vintage loudspeaker collector that's affordable. I personally own ohmspeakers, acoustats, eminent technology, magnepans, klipsch, srslabs, wharfedales, optimus linaeum, dcm and used to own bose 901's in the 80's! (crappy compared to my walsh, electrostats, planar driver designs)
ohm and magnepans to me is the best affordable loudspeaker that i can own. The rest are beyond my financial ability.
If price is not an issue. German physiks GAUB would be my choice. You'd think it's a power generator more than a loudspeaker, a beveridge looks like a boat, a genesis, pipedreams, nola, mckintosh looks like large heaters, martin logans like radar,magico an aircraft part, wilsons and B&W like robots, and magnepans like room dividers, von schweikerts a large furniture and so many others from the pyramid like CAIN &cain and the rest from stargate!!!
