Best Loudspeakers for Rich Timbre?

twoleftears,

It makes total sense to point out the liabilities of any design choice, of course.   The proof is always how a designer manages those liabilities and to what degree the listener perceives the pluses and minuses of the results. 

In terms of naturalness of timbre, the AN's hit it out of the park for me.  But then, they do need to be close to a front wall, and ideally close to a corner, for maximum bass reinforcement.  Judging by the number of photos I see of conventional speakers jammed up against walls, this should be an advantage for a large constituency.  On the other hand, I really like the sense of depth, air, perspective, from speakers positioned reasonably well away from boundaries, and despite AN's and the dealer's protestations to the contrary, I didn't feel the AN's had as much air as quality conventional speakers optimally positioned.

Just to get a few comments on this......What would you call:  the ability of a speaker to reproduce the image of ....let's say....the almost separate particles of sound, laid side by side in tight succession..... as in a bow on a bass fiddle's low string.....as opposed to a plucked electric bass string.  Is this 'texture', 'timbre' or 'resonance' or something else?  Hope my explanation above made sense.  

Exactly. The notes might be the same but the harmonics are totally different. That's why good speakers allow you to hear differences in guitars, violins etc. 

I wonder whether some people could be called harmonically deaf in the same way some are said to be colour blind? 

If so, this whole thread would seem pointless. The whole business about how we hear and especially interpret sound is individual to each of us. 

Keeping a complex subject as simple as possible by focussing on speakers alone there has been a lot of support here for those made by DeVore Fidelity. 

John DeVore seems to be a great example of the enthusiast made good. Sometimes I wish I had thought of going into building loudspeakers before leaving school. There are worse ways of spending your working life!