the smoothest sounding speaker

I personally love the Aerial 6's - I have a small square room (12 X 15)... lots of clean SS power (Levinson 23.5) and some acoustic room treatments. I am upgrading to the Aerial 9's as soon as I can find a nice set in Rosewood. I like the idea of the 20T ... but man, I just cant swing that much cash. For the price I thought the 6's actually sounded sweeter (less fatiguing) and had better imaging than the 7b's. I thought the 6's were a little weak when you hit higher volume levels - the 7b's did a much better job in that regard. The 9's were a combination of all the good in both the 6's and the 7b's...

Verity Audio Fidelio

I would suggest you check out Daedalus Audio. One of Lou's key design objectives is NO listener fatigue. I had the DA-1's for a couple years and they were the most non-fatiguing (yet lively and dynamic) speaker I've ever owned or heard--and I've owned several of the speakers mention such as Harbeth Compact 7's, Spendor SP1's and Spendor S100's. I've also heard the Aerial 7B's. If non-fatiguing sound is your thing, the Daedalus stuff is worth checking into. BTW, Lou is going to release several new models at the RMAF in a few weeks. He has two new "Reference Line" speakers and will be rolling out updated versions of the excellent DA-1 and DA-2. One of these models will be gracing my living room shortly. If your planning on being in Denver, go have a look.

Verity Audio....I have been in love with their smoothness since first hearing the Fedilo in 1997...

Couldn't afford them then and went all over the map until my recent purchace of the Parisifal Ovations.

For the most refined "smooth" sound go with the PO's. There are many speakers out their that are easy on the ears...Sonus Faber, DeVore, Dali...but the best of the best, IMO, are the VAs...

Enjoy, John

Ozzy, tell me about it. I am also looking into Dynaudio MC15 active speakers too. They use A/b amps. No Flying Mole digital stuff. Then all I would need is to build a dual mono motorized Alps pot volume control. The Marantz CDP is sort of harsh although really good for the $$$. Such a bummer the Sony SRP-P50 is no longer available. I also like the Creek A50r. Can't find those either.
I have built a variety of single driver speakers and even though they are fairly low resolution they are still harsh. That's because of the breakup modes, typically at 6 and 12kHz. No wonder people don't design these drivers into speakers to run full range, even though the driver can do it.