Journey ending speakers

I've heard an awful lot of speakers in my time, on account of they get sent to my shop for audition and I hear them at shows as well.

For about 20 years now one of the best I've heard has been the Classic Audio Loudspeakers model T-3.3, which is what I've been playing for most of that time (started as T-3s). They have dual 15" woofers (which cut off at 20Hz) and field-coil magnet structures. The midrange in particular is quite nice- beryllium compression diaphragm with a Kapton surround; very fast and the first breakup is at 35KHz, so very smooth as well. The speakers are also easy to drive, being 16 ohms and 98 db 1 watt/1 meter.   

There really isn't anything this speaker can't do. It can handle more power than I can throw at it, can play considerably louder than I ever need it to play and no part of the frequency spectrum is left to imagination. Its also very relaxed and detailed, even at high volume, but is equally comfortable imparting all the music at very low levels too. It is so undistorted that it is a bit disarming how loud its often playing- it certainly does not **sound** loud! Its only when you realized that you have to yell to be heard by someone right next to you that you realize how loud it might be playing.

Yet for all this the speaker is insanely musical. Its not particularly euphonic; instead I find it to be quite neutral, just like real music. It'll be quite a challenger to get them out of my living room- so far nothing is even on the horizon, which is not to say I've not heard other speakers that I could not live with for the rest of my life- I've heard a number of them. This one is simply the best of the crop.
 

ATC did it for me.

I'd like to hear the  ATC's actively.  After hearing what Vandersteen does with a semi active, I would like to hear a fully active one.  I don't like Meridian at all.  I heard one from Germany that uses ribbons, that didn't do it for me a few years ago.  It was fairly expensive (or unfairly to me, lol), but not my cup of tea.  I'd kill for a pair of the Vandy 7's with his high passed amp as that's an active system (especially with the new 9 subs) but the amps are in a separate box which is basically what Linn does too (I own the smaller Linn system for the bedroom and don't love it, lol).  

I do think that active speakers could have a great future, but too many want to pick and chose their own components in the US so that's probably not going to happen. lol

Well folks, the one thing we can be sure of is that we all perceive sound differently and thus the wide range of tastes expressed in this thread.  Hey, this is why there are so many manufacturers in audio. Although my current speakers (Vandersteen Treo CT with two 2wq subs.) is the sound for me they certainly would not sound optimum to many of you regardless of whether they employ new or old tech.

One absolute in my experience...I ALWAYS learn something about my own set-up after listening to someone else's system.  The experience may simply confirm what I thought of my rig or provoke me to investigate what I might do to hear a specific sonic aspect that I just heard elsewhere.

After all, it's not just about the gear it's about how we set it up and tweak it to sound the most musical to us.

+1 hifiman5