What are the best speakers you have ever owned and why?

I'm amazed about how many in this group have gone through a dozen or more pair of speakers.  It almost seems a bit schizophrenic.  lol  When you drop some serious coin on a world class speaker, how do you lose interest so quickly.  I've often wondered whether some people enjoy buying new speakers, or other equipment, more than actually listening to them.  I can certainly understand the thrill of acquiring a new rig, but let's not lose sight of what (hopefully) the real goal is...... enjoyment of the music itself. 

That being said, a few months ago I purchased a pair of Grandinote Mach 36's.  Presently, they are the only pair in the world.  They are supposed to be formally unveiled at the Munich High End show this spring.  If you have curiosity about them, my pair of custom made red ones may be viewed by Googling Grandinote Mach 36.  There are pics of them taken the day they were installed in my house on Long Island by Massimiliano Magri or Max, as his friends call him, the owner and chief engineer of Grandinote, who flew in from Italy to do the work himself.

I have never heard anything like them before.  The 36 drivers (hence, their name) and 25 tweeters in each speaker create an expansive soundstage with clarity and neutrality to the nth degree.  Powered by my Naim 500 Series electronics, with Danny Labrecque's Luna Cables, the music, whether it be Beatles, Beethoven, or anything else, has a vibrancy and life that makes it near impossible to turn it off, though I must admit, my wife does not always feel that way.
Anyway, these are the speakers with which I shall spend the remainder of my (hopefully, many) years!

The Best Speakers I have owned to date, are Anthony Gallo 3.1's, which I bought used.  Note, they are no longer in production.

They are essentially Crossover Free, utilizing the following:

1) An Electrostatic 300 Degree Dispersion Tweeter with transformer, etc.,  from 13 K upward, no crossover.

2) Two 5 inch Carbon Fiber Reinforced mid range speakers, no crossover.

3) One 10 Inch Woofer with two voice coils, no crossover

The High Frequencies are amazing with great Mid & Bass Response, Clarity & Slam. 

Bass is great down to 40 HZ or so, rated to 28 HZ with an optional amplifier on the second voice coil.

I chose to augment Bass with two Sub Woofers & an Electronic Crossover set @ 40 HZ & Down  to get base down to 20 HZ in the system.



 

http://stereotimes.com/speak112410.shtml

Lansche 4.1 speaker with pristine treble out of plasma tweeter and high efficiency around 95db/w suitable for low power SET amplifier.

It is also dynamic with two active 10 inch woofers.

I had been happily using it since 2007.



The best speaker that I had ever heard is big Western vintage horn but they are too large and expensive (around 300k$).

@prof1 and terry 9:

To take the one at a time--Quads are wonderful speakers.  We built some stands for the Levinson HQD system and had the pleasure of listening to them with the full setup--Decca ribbons in the middle of stacked Quads and 2 24" Hartley woofers in cabs we built that were as big as we were.  Totally great sound when driven by tubes.  The original Quad electronics were rather weak, but joined to Audio Research products, they sounded pretty durn good!  We were not a Levinson dealer--he did not care to be in the same shop with some other of our brands, and actually, back then, his stuff sounded pretty bad even though it was built like a tank.  He was what we called a "slow pay" as well, but that's another story.  So yeah, Quads are nice in the right room...I would bet a dinner that I could spend a day in your room and show you how much more accurate the Maggies are, but glad you love your system. That's all a good dealer wishes for his clients, and you are an example of one who knows what he likes and is able to own it.  We call that a huge WIN!

Aprof1, back then we all played instruments of various kinds in bands and went to a lot of concerts.  A fellow dealer from Miami became an expert recording person of live music of various kinds.  The chamber music was done very well.  When played over any other speaker, it did not sound as it did live based on us being in the room during the recording.  I would like to tell you we set up a big lab and measured everything with million-dollar mics in an anechoic chamber, but no one I know listens to music in an anechoic chamber, so we relied upon the musicians and experts in the room to point out places where other speakers (and electronics in some cases) added or subtracted or otherwise changed the music.  Obviously, no recording, etc., is perfect nor is any system perfect; they all have their idiosyncrasies.  BUT, without question, the Magnepan products introduced less of all undesired qualities to the music.  We have some theories, of course, but I will let the engineers argue incessantly over all that stuff.  I just knew what we heard, and it sounded like the instruments we heard live.  I have always put forth the concept that accuracy is best, but many clients want something else.  That is why there are over 300 speaker makers with many items in each line pretty much all the time.  There were 2 tube hardware manufacturers in the 1970's; today, I can't even count the number, so it must be a good business or it would not thrive.  I also have some theories and many hours of explanations from engineers, inventors, etc., about the how's and why's of things, and I know that what we hear is somewhat colored by many variables out of our control.  Go to a live concert (rock) today and like me, you might walk out time after time given the horrible sound systems they use.  It is almost unbelievable based on current technology, but I seldom hear the musicians playing their instruments or the vocalists singing.  Mostly, it is just loud noise.  Back in the day, Yes was the loudest band on the planet; today, Yes seems like chamber music when compared to the concerts I have attended in the past 6 years or so.  So, the best I can offer is to attend concerts where the music is played at normal volume and then see if your recordings of that same music sound as they did in the hall.  Where you notice differences that YOU DO NOT LIKE, talk to your dealer and try out some other items in your system to see if it gets better to you.

There is no perfect, only what you like in YOUR ROOM and can afford.

Cheers!

Focal Sopra 2

ozzy