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
disagree,

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.
Has anyone heard of essence. A little esoteric company out of I think lincol NE. Blew me away for the price.
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.
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:)
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