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
The new Diablo Utopia (Utopia III line) is certainly the best stand mounted 2-way I have heard.
MAGICO MINI 2 MAGICAL WONDERFUL NATURAL BEST IMAGING WARM WONDERFUL MIDRANGE GREAT AIRY HIGHS.
For a small to medium size room I may have heard some candidates just this past Sunday . . Esoteric M20's driven by a Grant Fidelity integrated and a Koetsu Urushi mounted in a 12" arm on a Nottinghamm Space Deck. Last month in a church abbey, some Daedalus DA1's driven by some Manley monoblocks and a VTL pre with a Linn front end. Both of these speaks are around 7k. Think I could be happy with either of these and the thousands of dollars I would save buying insanely priced whatevers. Think you might be, too.
My company (not in the audio business) is doing research on how the ear/brain system perceives music. We designed and built special loudspeakers to deal with some issues in commercially available systems. Audio has been a hobby of mine since 1951, when my Dad brought home an Altec 757a studio monitor, but these speakers are my favorite. (They have no name, but in-house we call them Wh-3’s.)

They have a very strange design. They look like they came from outer space, and they are huge – only a serious audiophile would consider having them in the living room, but people who hear them are usually amazed. Just for fun, I’ve been recording the sound of very high end speakers and playing it back through the Wh-3’s. It’s amazing. Some of the videos are on my channel on YouTube. Just go to YouTube and search for listiac. Of course, the YouTube audio is not very good, but you can catch the flavor…