Speaker of the Century Award Goes To ....

2.5 - Way speakers tend to sound better than 3-Ways IME. The only affordable 3-ways I can imagine living with are Vandersteens. 

A couple years ago I owned some relatively affordable 3-way towers from Monitor Audio that were praised by many in the audiophile press. I have zero doubt my $200, 2-Way Advents would annihilate them in a blind listen, absolutely no contest.

Helo, Monitor Audio had a few " lines " of speakers, and I agree that the more affordable lines left a lot to be desired. But, if you are saying that the Advents are, by todays standards, capable of annihilating them, in what specific areas of music reproduction are you speaking about ? I appreciate you enjoying the Advents, but I would have to disagree with the severity of the term annihilate. I can tell you, many details, speed, and spatial characteristics, would be better on the Monitors. Maybe not the warmth, or coherence. I enjoyed, at the cost back in the day, my stacked double Advents, in a 2ndary system. We all hear, and appreciate some things, differently, Just saying. Enjoy ! MrD.

SPEAKER OF THE CENTURY?  That's like saying who made the best automobile in the last 100 years!  But I would say that some of the most
SIGNIFICANT achievements in sound reproduction belong in two categories. 1.definitely Magaplanars.-astonishingly real authentic music.
I could EASILY overlook their shortcomings, but that's me. 
2. A 20-20 speaker that has some minor limitations. That IMO is the Eggleston Andra, with an unbeatable tweeter without diamonds, a near perfect integration from top to bottom- which goes down below 20Hz.
Unlike the B&W 801 Matrix (the audio end of the road),you DO NOT need 
the most refined front-end componenets to get them to sound good.
It would help to get something good, like a good CDP, etc.
So IMHO you either get the Maggies (3.7's are incredible), or you get a 
box with an amazing crossover, and superb drivers in an MDF heavily braced cabinet as good as you really need to stop resonances.
You save money and you can play them as loud as you want. Placement and set-up you can do yourself. Play a piano sonata on them and tell me they don't sound like you went out and bought a Steinway. There are better speakers for $100,000 and more, but they tend to be overwhelming- they.move too much air. LIKE A FANCY restaurant that, Instead of serving you a steak dinner, they bring you the whole cow. 

The only thing I would say is the best in anything human is Bach .
In speakers the sweethearts were AR-3 's .

One could argue the best selling speaker of all time is the speaker of the century . But as far as performance , time alignment , quality of build , design firsts and out right copied from is the jbl L7 .  My vote.