Best all around speakers

I have to imagine that a large speaker with multiple drivers and large woofers can do things that a small two-way cannot, and just as importantly the small two-way will excel in many ways that a large, multi-driver, big woofer cannot match. The Vandersteen 3As comes to mind as a speaker that has some of the attributes of both extremes, and makes an excellent all-around speaker for all types of music. I prefer Merlin VSMs that excel at the kind of music I most care to listen to small group jazz, accoustic, and chamber music - a similar genre speaker as the Quads, but louder and more dynamic and ultimatley a wider range of music - but I would not choose it if I wanted to listen to reggae all day long.

To Shadorne's point, last Saturday I listened to Mahler's 1st, which gets incredibly loud at several points when the average loudness is set around 85dB. Immediately after that I put on a Bruce Cockburn CD that had mysteriously arrived in the mail despite me not ordering it. I love much of Bruce's work, but the thing blared out at 90+dB and just sounded crappy. I turned it way down, but it was totally lacking in dynamics and sounded lifeless at lower level. It didn't sound good loud and it didn't sound good medium or soft. I gave it one listen and, even though I was intrigued by some of the lyrics and music, I'll never listen to it again.

Dave

Is compression much more common in pop/rock? It seems like it is. It would make sense if much of this music is listened to in a car where the noise floor is louder than my living room. Classical recordings do seem to be startling in their dynamic range, especially we you "accidentally" play the low volume passage loud and then....

Pubul57 said:

"Is compression much more common in pop/rock? It seems like it is."

I think you're right about that.

Dave

JohnK:

You are correct, I miss-spoke. The open baffel di-pole design allows the creation of a null at the sides of the speaker which cancels bass reflection from the side walls and thus removing the common placement issues associated with most other designs, that are able to generate bass to +/- 20 htz. It also removes cabinet resonance and propagation issues since there is no cabinet.

The only other design that does bass as well, that I have experienced, are horns. However, my listening room does not have enough room to accomodate two refridgerator sized bass units.

I did not state that the EP's are perfect. In fact, I said that "I don't know if they are the best." But to my ears, the combination of the open baffel, di-pole, and waveguide (horn for the treble), plays any type of music extremely well.

And I stand by my assertion that "I have not heard a more accurate, revealing, live-sounding, and dynamic pair of speakers."

For a more detailed explanation, and no doubt a better written one, see John Potis's new review of the EP's in Positive Feedback.

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue38/emerald_physics_2.htm