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
i was at the ces in chicago in 1976 and Saul Marantz gave me a demonstration of some tube gear with stacked modified dahlquist dq-10s with dual subs in a hotel suite. he had blankets hanging over mirrors and no other tweaks i can remember. but the sound and demo was incredible. great memory.i worked at a dahlquist dealer and never did sell a stacked pair but sold many pair of them with mcintosh electronics and thorens turntables. the good old days. ha. but i think todays gear is much better with the new technology and materials. about 5 years ,in the early 80s, later infinity brought out a huge pair of speakers with rows of ribbon like tweeters and poly drivers that were more expensive than almost everything else and they were very nice. i don,t remember the model number.
Hotmailjbc,

I believe you are thinking of the huge Infinity IRS V's consisting of two tower columns with floor to ceiling emit ribbon tweeters and two columns of floor to ceiling servo controlled 12" (I think) bass drivers. Sold new for ~ $50K. Heard them at MillerSound a few years back and they were awesome.
One saturday I went to audio connection looking for a cd player john showed me the primare cd-31 which is an excellent machine for any price. He played this player on his front system which he had the vandersteen 7 for the speaker system. Out of all the speaker systems I,ve heard these were a new level of high performance. The sound left me speechless. You should audition this speaker at least once in your lifetime.
Mike_barnett, it is the high point of Richard's speaker development certainly.