@inna, FANTASTIC topic. Most people do expound the positives of their components. But perfection doesn’t exist in this realm, or in life.
Some analysis of the speakers I currently own:
Quad ESL57: More hard to fault the Quads than any speakers I’ve encountered, as they just sound SOOO much more like real life than the rest of the speaker world. Most high-end audio sounds too forward or hard, some components go too far the other way to avoid it. Yet the original Quads sound neither too hard nor too soft, too bright nor too dull, too forward nor too reticent, too warm nor too cold, and implement something closer to the perfection everyone seeks than any other. But there’s the lack of the bottom octave, and blow you back sort of bass. The bass is of higher quality than ported and sealed speakers, but I often crave getting kicked in the stomach, and the Quads could never, ever, ever do that. Funny, I listen loud, 95dB at the chair, and they do that without issue
Fried Valhalla System: Satellites with true Transmission Line (TL) loaded midrange, sitting on true TL 10" subwoofers. An almost faultless design that demonstrates while true TL produces probably the second best bass next to my friend Bill Legall’s correctly implemented 18" Ohm Walsh A driver, only in comparison to the Quads do you notice a cone driver cannot capture the true essence of natural sound and reality, as well as how very far away they are. Living with the gold standard makes me aware of the wrong tonality of these and everything else. Hearing true TL, you realize it’s far more (as Bud knew) important on the midrange than the woofer. And after hearing a series crossover (which Bud knew was even more important than TL), when it comes to coherence, virtually every loudspeaker on the market implements parallel crossovers that fail to seamlessly integrate their multiple drivers
Fried Studio V: A slight step back from the Valhalla System, implementing the drivers in a single tower cabinet, yet superior to most of what you encounter in the current market. Despite being a 3 way, the true TL loaded 8" woofer can only go so low. And once again, after you hear the Quads, everything else, no matter how good, lacks that utter sense of naturalness
Fried A/6: Line Tunnel in a stuffed ported loudspeaker, made to emulate a transmission line, and also used by companies like Von Schweikert. This low-cost bass loading, while simple, effective, and affordable, can come off a bit unexciting and underwhelming. The overall sound of the speaker further tends to the more relaxed and liquid side, and missing extension on both ends of the sonic spectrum. Took me quite a long time to come to grips with, and actually enjoy
Coincident Digital Master w/Troubass subwoofers: Modifications - upgraded them to ScanSpeak Revelator tweeter, had my friend Bill Legall damp the cabinets and rebuild the 8" Seas polypropylene midwoofer to greatly open up the sound. After hearing electrostatic and true TL bass and midrange, a ported speaker never sounds correct, due to realizing how much distortion it produces. Though almost universal today, ported speakers sound shockingly dirty in comparison to other designs. That 8" Seas polypropylene midwoofer in the satellite modules produces an incredibly "plastic" sound in comparison to the Quads and paper drivers, in general. Also, Coincidents never posses their advertised sensitivity, and sound best with at least a decent amount of power
A few other loudspeakers I’ve previously had:
Consonance M15 horn: Front loaded horns. Horn drivers have a difficult (impossible?) time integrating the horn with a traditional cone woofer, 15" in this case. The horn brings tremendous speed and clarity; large cone woofers in a vented box are the yin to that yang. Some listeners don’t seem to mind or even notice, it drives others crazy
Horning Perikles: Circumsized (whizzer cone removed) Lowther driver with dual 12" woofers firing into an adjustable back-loaded horn (the kind people forget about when they talk horns) configuration, and a traditional tweeter handling the upper end. The speakers sound so great on so many levels, and Jeff Catalano masterfully demonstrates them at shows. But for the life of me, they refused to image in my room
Merlin VSM: Next to the Vandersteen 2 and Wilson WATT/Puppy, probably THE speaker that represents high-end audio. With most components, Merlins tend to sound lean, and with some, even hard. Without the BAM, you have more or less a minimonitor. With it, what some consider phantom low frequencies. I’ve heard folks rip it to whatever degree, but not until I owned them did I come to understand those sentiments. Still, will probably buy another pair at some point
Tidal Piano: Just too clean a design. Most often, uninteresting. On their worst days, the hardness and lack of warmth and beauty of the ceramic drivers left me unconsciously digging my fingernails into the chair
