Best all around speakers


Just curious what people think around here for best all around speakers for wide variety of musical genres and amplifications needs (tubes and solid state). Not everybody listen exclusively to Diana Krall and Norah Jones and/or acoustical jazz or classical music. Some of us like to listen to a wide variety of music (from rock and roll to bluegrass to blues to you name it) and don't feel the need or want to have a differet speaker for each genre of music. Seems to me many speaker designers have a very narrow taste in music, which unfortunately doesn't reflect what most people listen to, which I think is one of the reasons why many speakers end up disappointing quite a number of listeners.
cleaneduphippy
Timrhu,

THe room is one of the BIGGEST factors for sure.

Macdadtexas,

Funny you say that becasue I recall the first really good systems I ever heard that caught my ear was at a dealer circa 1978. The first thing that caught my ear was a pair of Magnepan (Timpani's, I think). The second were Klipschorns.

And so here I am 30 years later...Maggies and Klipschorns still intrigue me. I've owned Maggies + believe I may one day own one of the cornerstones of good sound for, what 50 years or so, the Klipschorn.

The fact that these speakers (Klipschorn) were created for state of the art reproduction of the music of that era alone, which produced some fantastic and distinctive recordings, is justification for entry in my mind. If I do, one of the pair I own (probably the Dynaudios)may go or may stay if I can figure out something useful to do with them because I really like them too and hate to part with good components.
Good and lively discussion here, glad I started this thread, and it's interesting and imformative to learn the various points of view that people have on this subject. One thing I appreciate is that the discussion is getting beyond the "buy this, buy that" and getting more into the "why" some of you have made the choices that you have made. And to me that is more useful information, as it allows me to understand the process of getting ones audio system to place you want it to be.

Once again thanks to all of you, and keep your thoughts coming.
Musicnoise, what you meant to say in your quoted text is muddy, at least. We're talking about home music systems here, not live performance equipment and I still can't see where you made any clear distinction. Sorry for the misinterpretation.

I think we agree, but I'm not sure, that we both think that distorted reproduction systems really make little sense, even though many people choose them. I think this choice is often made because getting the sources right, particularly on a budget, is hard to do, so they buy distorted amplification to smooth over the shortcomings of their frontends.

Dave
There is no ambiguity in the text of the post to which you initially commented. I did not refer to live performances. All references to specific equipment and to systems in general were to home audio systems. The OP did not refer to live performances or live performance equipment. The examples of rock music that I referred to have been performed live and recorded in a studio. The plain language of the text was clear, did not reference other posts - other than that of the OP, and was not in reference to a discussion of other than home audio systems. Reading the post as a whole, in the context of the OP's question, there is no ambiguity in the sentence "There are really two broad schools of thought with speakers and sound in general" or any other part of the text. Hence, the text did not require distinguishing between live performance equipment and home audio equipment. A reasonable reading of the text would not leave one with a question as to whether I was referring to live performance equipment or a home audio system.
Musicnoise, I never said anything about live performance, so why are you talking about it? I talked about replicating a live performance. Get your panties out of your crack and move on.

Dave