Speaker of the Century Award Goes To ....

Whatever you can afford that makes you want to listen more.

Eric makes some very valid points, regarding a speaker design well suited for the combination of affordability, smaller available space for set up and environments with close neighbors.
My hands down favorite speaker that I ever had or auditioned, the speaker that drew me most into the experience of a live acoustic performance, was the Apogee Duetta Signatures. Definitely not a speaker well suited for small spaces, close neighbors and tight budgets though. So what qualifies as best, is quite relative......Jim  

ANYONE who plays a musical instrument and likes either horn or box speakers has a hearing impairment.

Go out in front of the current orchestra that you play in/attend concerts by and LISTEN to the MUSIC in the room they are playing in.  THEN, go to another room and the same MUSIC played by the same orchestra will sound different because of the room.  Conductors know this and make adjustments.  Even some amplified bands know this, or at least the people who run their shows know.  MANY do not, and thus live amplified concerts are mostly a waste of time and money except for rabid fans who don't care about the music.

ROOMS are more important to music than speakers.

Having typed that, I suggest that everyone go to your dealer and pick up a few pair of various kinds of speakers, take them home to YOUR ROOM and listen to them.

Buy whatever sounds most like the orchestra to you and be happy.  I predict that those who play and/or attend concerts often will choose what sounds closest to live.  But maybe not...some musicians I used to serve at my shop were not really LISTENING to the entire orchestra, but only their own section.  Error!

Cheers, and enjoy the MUSIC!

What are YOU hoping to hear on a recording??  Depends, right?

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@richopp

ANYONE who plays a musical instrument and likes either horn or box speakers has a hearing impairment.

Well, congratulations on one of the silliest claims I've seen someone make here ;-)

I play musical instruments (e.g. acoustic/electric guitar, piano, bass, drums, used to play sax), my friends play musical instruments.  I like box speakers.  I'm not hearing impaired.


What in the WORLD were you actually trying to say that makes any sense?

Of course rooms influence the sound of a speaker,  that's a given.  But what does that have to do with your first statement about box speakers?Is EVERYONE hearing impaired?  Or are you suggesting there is some specific type of speaker - not box or horn - that someone who "plays a musical instrument" should own?  If so:  don't beat around the bush: Name that type of speaker.

(And btw, your claim that "rooms" are more important to music than speakers is also misleading.  Scientific work done by people like Floyd Toole have indicated that we are good at "hearing through" the acoustics of a room to the essential tonal character of a speaker, in tne midrange up.  For the same reason we are good at identifying people's voices even when we move from room to room.  This is why, on the research conducted by Toole, others using the NRC and Harmon Kardon's blind testing facilities, it turns out that a certain profile of neutrality on axis IS important because that's what we tend to pick up almost regardless of the room.  A smoothly sloping down of off-axis sound helps improve the added room reflections, making such a design perform more predictably in a wider range of rooms).