speakers for classical music

David,

If you like to drive speakers loud and particuarly realistic dynamics/spl then this is generally what happens. Go horns or pro speakers would be my suggestion. Consumer designs generally are never required nor do they claim to reproduce realistic music levels so it is unfair to push them so hard.

Hi Shadorn,
Yes, I hear what you are saying. My next pair of speakers will be from the JBL Project line, with thier famous compression drivers and 15" bass units.

Quad, Magneplanar, or Ohm.

Compromise nothing, timbre, dynamics, etc. Nothing! Accept a speaker as ultimate for ANY genre of music if it has less than spectacular results in every parameter? No way!

The best speaker for classical is the best speaker for rock is the best for Jazz, etc.

In other words, I want the best no matter what I play. I don't want a speaker that only performs well with one kind of music or media.

A Better speaker for me better be better across the board. I'll not take exceptions to this rule.

Everything sounds better on a superior speaker - Chamber, orchestral, solo instrument, voice, everything!

And you know you have a winner when virtually nothing sounds bad, even music that sounded poor on other speakers with the same source, cables, etc has a lesser degree of "poorness"!
:)

Atmasphere's comment in this regard is dead on.

for the person recommending vienna acoustics - what electronics work well for those speakers (mahlers and something smaller)- both amp and preamp? And in general what are people who listen to classical music using to drive their speakers? Tastes run from symphony (mahler beethoven) through instrumental and chamber.

Its true that really good speakers, when matched properly to the rest of the system, will sound good with all genres of music and types of recordings.

Classical, particularly large orchestral arrangements, and some would say piano, is generally one of the harder genres for a speaker to deliver fully. I've found Big Band music to be perhaps the hardest genre of all for speakers to really deliver fully.