The best speaker you ever heard?

So far the best I've heard were the Legacy Helix at the Legacy Audio showroom in Springfield, IL. Other contenders Magnepan Tympani IVs, MG 3.6s, Acoustat 2+2s, Snell Type As, and Legacy 20/20s. I look forward to hearing other contenders.

I'd be willing to bet, reading some polar opposite posts about "best" being low cost and weird speakers alike, that it was more about what was the best ROOM. In my world (recording/mastering studios), its ALL about the room. A mix can blow you away in the right room on cheap speakers, or 2 seconds later sound like crap on killer speakers in a bad room.

I remember Glenn Meadows at Masterphonics used to master using Yamaha NS10M's on Cello amplifiers. Sounded very good in his room! That speaker, widely used for mixing, sounds awful to me 99% of the time.

Brad

transaudio has a very good point. Bad equipment matching, bad room acoustics can make any good sounding loudspeaker bad irregardless of price. Acoustics in a room is very important, as important as the speaker design itself. All well designed loudspeakers however properly tuned and placed in the optimal acoustical environment with matching gear gives that audio nirvana feeling. There's always something in us that always wants us to push the envelope even though we might be satisfied with what we're hearing.

Transaudio, I have two listening rooms. One is quite large with high ceilings and natively pretty good acoustics. The other is a tiny 10 x 13 x 8' room in my small summer home in the mountains. I was never dissatisfied with the large room and very unhappy with the small room. Long ago after much experimentation in the large room I got it very satisfying. The small room took me two years to get it acceptable.

I don't think getting a "good" room is at all easy. I tried professional solutions like LEDE, profession diffusers, and even audio mirrors. I even tried digital room correction. Then after hearing a demonstration of the Synergistic Research ARTs and buying them on the spot, I found a solution in the large room. The small room also responded to using these Tibetan bowl derived wall treatments, making it listenable. This summer, I found another company also using the Tibetan bowl derived method, and it had an amazing impact basically removing the sidewalls and the speaker walls.

Basically, I agree with you, but it is not easy to create a "good" room.

"it had an amazing impact basically removing the sidewalls and the speaker walls"

So you are saying these treatments essentially turned your room into an anechoic chamber?

I don't doubt they have a positive effect used properly, but that sounds like a bit of an exaggeration?