Speakers to hang on to for LIFE


After 9 years with my Proac Response 3s, I recently decided to change speakers. As you can tell, I'm not an upgrade fever patient. I want something I can live with for years & I think the best advice I'm gonna get will be from those who have & are still living with their speakers for an extended period of time. Please tell me why too. Thanks.Bob.
ryllau
I never intend to get rid of my Legacy Signature III's. I will keep these for life. They can be fine tuned to the room and equipment with switches on the back. Ribbon tweeters front and back. Dome tweeter front also. Two midrange. Woofer front, bottom and rear. And balanced perfectly. The bad part is Legacy chose to stop making them instead of upgrading them like the rest of their line. Once in a blue moon you will see a set on Audiogon. People on hanging on to them. Instead of speakers I now have money to concentrate on other equipment.
For me, it's the Merlin VSM-MX two way floor standing monitors. They meet or exceed all my measures of a great speaker. In my room they totally disappear, leaving only the music. The imaging is first rate. The highs are as smooth as silk, never fatiguing. The bass is very articulate down to the mid 30's. And most of all, the emotion of the music is conveyed. It's easy to sink into the emotion of the music. When you get "goose bumps" listening to female vocals you know something is very right. The Merlins will be with me for a long time.
In August '06 I mentioned the Merlin VSM-MX, well they must be keepers and I replaced them with the VSM-MXe lead free version, which is a signficant improvement. I agree with sburton's comments 100%. If they were twice the size with three times the number of drives even more people would try'em -- they look to simple, to small to be SOTA, well, all I can say is listen to them if you can. Great things come with this "small" package. I'm keeping these things till the break or I do.
Sunlight Engineering SE308 concentrics 18in drivers with 500hz compresion horn in center of woofer 104db 50lbs of alnico mag driver can be rebuilt but as is should last 50 + years.Can be used in extreme nearfield or use in a large hall they can easly produce massive SPL off little power.Smooth detailed sound,massive dynamic range, image is near real, tone to die for, makes you feel the emotion in music disapear when on even in extreme nearfield and they are huge.Wish I could keep for life was going to say from my cold dead hands but as with all things have to sell........Maybe some lucky soul will pick these up and keep for life I have owned built designed,demoed beta tested so many loudspeakers these are truly something special.As I have looked in this post for years now I see many loudspeakers suggested that could never last a life time you would need replacement drivers,rebuild surrounds, electric parts, cabinets are built of MDF which doesnt age well.Will such be availble in the future for these models?Will it even be worthwill to repair said drivers? With the se308 this isnt a problem just replace cone if damaged if cone cracks or gets holed no big deal for owner to repair cabinets so over built should last more than a lifetime finish is french polish which will look better as it ages will the polycoats on all these other sugestions stay the same? or will it yellow checker flake off expoing cheap veneers and MDF.So for a loudspeaker to last a lifetime it needs to be built to and most are only designed for 15 years use.
At the moment a pair of Oris 150's which do everything my ears like. Although I did say that about my Linn Isobariks back in the day (circa 1850)lol. Then Horns cometh, and then Horns stayeth.
Hey Johnk- the SE308 look great.