speakers for classical music

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.

No one mentioned Sonus Faber. I found that they were very holographic compared to the VA Haydns and seemed to do better with less power. IMHO

06-06-08: Musicnoise said:
"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."

The VAs like relatively high power (at least 100 wpc). I've heard them sound very good with Primare, Bryston, Conrad Johnson and Rowland. My best experience has been with the Rowlands, but that's kind of "the ultimate".

Dave

If SF uses a simple crossover and VA uses a complex one, you might conclude that the SF puts more into their drivers, for the same price range. I keep reading about SF driver quality.