Best speaker brands for transient response

@livinon2wheels have you heard other models in the Heritage line? I heard the La Scalas for a moment and they were surreal, could not spend more time with them bc some guy kept fiddling with the Mcintosh amp that was driving them. I was amazed by the holographic imaging, but didn't have the chance to test them for transients.

There are a couple of heritage line dealers in the city that I plan on visiting and will try out the Forte. The CW is too big for the space i have to work with.

Surprised to see no mention of Revel here. Percussion comes through with amazing clarity on the F206, which requites transient capability, right? And Revel has several lines superior to those (and one line below, whose F56 is not as clear sounding). To my ears, the Revel's harmonic and transient clarity is far superior to the ribbons in Emotiva and the horns in Klipsch. But then, there are a number of brands being discussed here I've never heard.

@deep_333 wrote:

I think my last comment was fairly self explanatory.

There are several metrics that play into audiophile nirvana, transients being one of them.

No disagreement here, but what I did disagree with was your take on how large horns were represented, or certainly your interpretation of it (quoted paragraph of yours in my earlier reply) in this particular context, and this is still the area (i.e.: transients) that's my main focus; no deduction on my part into a conclusion that basically claims ".. if a speaker excels in transients, it's great at everything." 

As long as a speaker tackles several of these metrics above a certain acceptable threshold, one might start raving about it.

Indeed, especially a select group of "macro parameters." 

But, when you are locked into a design space, you can’t excel at everything.

Maybe not, but I'd argue certain design spaces allow for greater potential overall when taken to their fuller "extremes" and more radical implementations, as is the case - in my point of view - with large, horn-loaded speakers, and to some degree also ESL's. That the potential of horn speakers is mostly not realized isn't a design deficit with regard to performance versatility and breadth, but rather the restrictions imposed by the users from aesthetic and interior design considerations, which dictate a smaller size factor. 

I understand you’re a horn connesieur, speaking of horns, I had the older K2 9800 for a while. I have some big unheard of Yamaha PA in storage that probably beat that older JBl into dust (or what i remember of it). I may aspire to a Meyer Sound bluehorn or something similar at some future date. There are others who seem to do horns better than jbl, imo.

Again, no disagreement here. I'm not a JBL fan as is (kinda was in my early youth though), certainly not of their wider range of domestic offerings, but they're one of the few originally pro manufacturers to still provide a home line of speakers where their pro origins can "bleed" into, and for that I find they deserve some credit. However, there's a bunch of other pro manufacturers with designs from their pro repertoire (both older or newer stuff), that - given proper implementation - will quite easily challenge and exceed domestic solutions from JBL in a home environment, at potentially much lower prices, simply because they more readily adhere to core physics. 

Can/does something like a Borresen transient wonder do the same things (other enjoyable things) as some of these big horns? NOT...different designs, different compromises.

There are traits cultivated from specific design routes that are difficult to extract in others, yes. 

The avg audiophile thinks that he gets the best of everything if he just spent enough on his 1 wonder pair of speakers....NOT. (he probably doesn’t have enough space or cash to accommodate more than 1 pair of very different types of speaker designs. Hence, he may either start lying to himself or the sales guy lied to him.)

My take: cost isn't the real issue here, but rather the extent to which one is willing to go to materialize a potential from a specific, fitting design path. Vanity, dogma and/or conjecture are other issues; many won't wade into the pro arena with functional looking (and sometimes cheaper) products in addition to, as mentioned earlier, large size. 

@asctim  not sub 1/10th millisecond issues that arise from the mass of the diaphragm, or slew times of amplifiers, 

My experience of slew rates is different. I am driving ESL's, and my amps sound good with 30V/us output transistors, better with 40V/us, and better yet with 50 V/us; that is, better transient response.

Another key objective is to preserve transients and spatial cues, which convey the impact of a musical event. This is achieved through good relative phase between drivers, i.e. they must all radiate in unison