Best all around speakers

As I said in a different thread, by far the best type of music to use to test a speaker is classical, specifically full scale orchestral music, or perhaps even better, opera. This type of music places more demands on the speaker than any other type, by far - particularly the huge dynamic ranges, variety of timbres, the sheer number of instruments and voices, the greater size of the soundstage to reproduce, the much greater complexity of the music itself - one could go on and on. A speaker that can handle all of this can handle any other type of music one could choose to throw at it. That said, it is also true that no single speaker is going to excel at all of these things more than all the others, and personal preference will enter into it a great deal. But if we are talking best all-around speaker, it's got to be able to handle the biggest challenges, so if it can handle the above things, it WILL be able to handle any other type of music - so I would disagree with those who have said that it is a must to own multiple sets of speakers for different types of music. Set up a speaker system that sounds fantastic for all types of what we call classical music from huge opera to a solo string instrument or voice, and no fan of any other type of music will have any complaints when their favorite type is played over them - I have found this to be true 100% of the time, with different types of speakers, too, though in the experience of myself and many professional musicians and audiophiles, horns will reproduce all of the above with the greatest accuracy overall. The other thing just about all professional musicians would agree on is that this requires floorstanding speakers as well, so I guess that 100% number I threw out there does assume floorstanders - smaller speakers simply cannot reproduce some of the qualites necessary for the reproduction of the very largest scale music.

My vote is for a design incorporating Open Baffel and Waveguide (horn). Having +/- 400 hrs on a pair of Emerald Physics CS-2's, I can honestly say I have not heard a more accurate, revealing, live-sounding, and dynamic pair of speakers.

The open baffel dipole design takes the room and its' problems out of the equation.

I'm not saying they (the EP's) are are the "best", but their design plays everything as well as any speakers I have heard. And, once you have heard bass without the box, you will get a completely different understanding of what dynamic means.

Best regards,

Dave

To expand on Learsfool's theme, any one of the recent SACDs of Mahler by SF Syphony with Michael Tilson Thomas will test the limits of a speaker system. Symphony #1 and #6 have over 40dB of dynamic range, with huge sounds juxtiposed with almost silent spots.

For someone that doesn't know symphonic sounds, then some vocal music will need to be added to check timbres. Female and male vocals in rock or pop genres will usually do, so long as the recording is not grossly compressed.

Dave

To expand on Learsfool's theme, any one of the recent SACDs of Mahler by SF Syphony with Michael Tilson Thomas will test the limits of a speaker system. Symphony #1 and #6 have over 40dB of dynamic range, with huge sounds juxtiposed with almost silent spots.

These were monitored and mixed using Quad ESL 63's. These speakers will not play much more than 100 db SPL peaks before shutting down. Not suitable for realistic Mahler playback in a large room IMHO but obviously for the recording engineer (Andreas Neubronner) the unsurpassed midrange accuracy of the Quad's must be very important for classical mixing decisions. The recordings have won awards so if you are into classical and want to hear the detail of each instrument (at low SPL's) then this would obviously be a good choice of speaker. If you listen to rock or jazz then I think this speaker would be a mistake (Andreas has PMC AML1, Rogers Ls3/5a and Genelec 1031 too - so I expect the checks his mixes on these speakers too in order to ensure they are suitable for the general market)

That was mastering really, wasn't it? No doubt it was in a pretty small room and, perhaps, some subs were integrated into the mix to get the full range, even in a smaller room.

In an average room, without subs, IMHO, ELS 63s will be stretched beyond capacity by Mahler. They'll sound glorious most of the time, but the peaks will slay them. That's just not acceptable for me, but I understand the attraction for those that go that route.

Dave