Best all around speakers

Mapman, you're quite right, an awful lot of this is personal preference. I noted my own preference for Harbeths above, but (as also noted), I find that I'm happiest with several diffent sources, each of which has a bit different voice. I guess I've gotten very picky in my dotage, but I haven't found a speaker that gets everything close enough to "right" (for my ear) that I don't feel a need to tinker with what I'm inputting into it.

I disagree with many audio designers have a narrow taste in music. I design loudspeakers and listening to most everything. Many of my friends in manufacturing have music collections as large as a university. But at most shows you get little girl with piano and when audiophiles want to demo most pick little girl with piano. I scared many off with my Zappa guitar LP and its amazing. They loved it till one asked who it was. Once Zappa was mentioned off they went. Shows and demos suck, real work for whoever does it, would you enjoy listening to music you hate over and over, some guys will play 1 cut over and over and over and yet again. You know who you are.. Maybe you guys can cut them some slack but you wont. Sure little girl music will pass in time but look how long Pink Floyds DSoM arrghh or DS brothers in arms, sure I heard both at the same time last show off in the distance with a mix of PB and DK tossed in hell on earth..

I agree that most speaker manufacturers tailor the speaker to a particular genre and I am not convinced that one set of characteristics are best suited to all types of music; even the volume level which can be achieved and the amount of distortion desired or unwanted comes into play. I find listening to a string quartet at low spl's completely satisfying. However, "sympathy for the devil" or "my generation" just seems to lose something when heard at 70 db. While auditioning a wide range of speakers for many months - basically everything I could find in a 100 mile radius - I came across the Monitor Audio GS60's. I did not find those speakers suitable for my needs. My impression of the speakers were that there was nothing wrong with them. They seemed accurate, sounded fine, added nothing to the sound, could produce acceptable spl's in a medium size room, etc. In short, there was nothing special about the speakers one way or the other - to my listening. I heard other speakers that worked well for vocals (classic spendors driven by low powered tubes for example - not particularly accurate but sounded very nice) rock (the largest paradigms driven by a bryston), classical (B&W 800 series, Genelec monitors and Dali floorstanders). The GS60's would be a serious option for me if I regularly listened to music of more than one genre. However, I do think that separate systems would give me more of what I would desire in that instance. There are really two broad schools of thought with speakers and sound in general. One is to build the most accurate system possible, the other is to treat the system as a musical instrument in and of itself. In my opinion an example of the first would be a digital source amplified by solid state system with low THD and with speakers designed for flat response across the audio spectrum. Of the second, an analog source with tube amplification (but specifically, tube amplification that is not designed for low distortion and that is almost meant to go into distortion) coupled with speakers that are not designed via laboratory measurements but more for an agreed upon sound. Both are viable options. The GS60's are worth a listen for speakers that can go across genres - if your pricing is more or less, Monitor Audio makes a higher end and less expensive models. Usually a company that goes in one direction or another tends to do so across their offerings.

Its almost like investing.....maybe never put all your eggs in one basket.....

Also, I believe sharing listening time with multiple speaker designs in my house helps keep my ears unbiased.

Sometimes when you hear the same thing only day after day, it can get stale sounding, no matter how good it really is.

A little variety in anything usually helps keep things interesting, doesn't it?

That's probably why so many of use change components so often always looking for something better or at least something a little different that we think sounds better.

08-15-08: Musicnoise said:

"... the amount of distortion desired or unwanted comes into play." and "There are really two broad schools of thought with speakers and sound in general. One is to build the most accurate system possible, the other is to treat the system as a musical instrument in and of itself."

This view boggles my mind. How can adding distortion on top of distortion replicate a performance say, "Sympathy for the Devil"? If the recording itself is full of distortion, then don't you want to hear what the artist intended??? I don't see that as a valid approach at all. A system like that couldn't reproduce anything well, IMHO.

If you want to reinterpret the recording, then load it into a music suite and modify it to your tastes, but then play it back through an accurate system, rather than a crap shoot, distorting system.

Dave