Experienced audiophiles best speaker

Yes, Spendors were far better, they did sound musical, what it is touted for. May be this gives a clue where I am coming from. Since I was upgrading from a Dynaudio which was a fair bit more neutral than the Spendors, I could not convince myself to buy the Spendors. But yes, the Spendor is a more musical speaker than Dyns in general.
Finally I hit the sweetest spot with the best of the neutrality and highest grade of musicality with the ATC !!
They are God level speakers, where others end, they begin.
Set them up correctly and you would not be able to upgrade, which is such a rare thing in Audio. Unfortunately they draw a lot out of you in terms of matching electronics, cables, positioning, room treatment (need not be exhaustive but some care needs to be taken for bare walls especially if concrete). All these things take time if you are doing it on your own and you learn a lot. Most importantly one can blindly trust the speakers not being at fault if there is something wrong in the overall sound, they are brutally honest in a good way. One can listen to the poorest of recordings on these speakers and enjoy every bit of it (if there is anything to enjoy in the music) without getting fatigued....but all that after the painful setting up process is close to done.

I have heard the Spendors and Dynaudios but not the Harbeths...yet I wonder if your description of analysis and dryness comes from their use of metal dome tweeters (in most models).

Metal domes (in any speaker or application) sound analytical and dry to my ears. Yet the Spendor and Dynaudio models only use soft domes and I wonder if their more forgiving sound is a buy-product of that decision.

That seems to make sense, I would think that metal dome tweeters carry a signature sound different that soft-dome, I just haven't picked up on it (at my age that might make sense:() Similar overservations made by listeners of Theil speakers (which many love)....

Thanks Paul, Kara's electronics have a lot to do with the sound. Check out this blog from the dagogo show in San Francisco.

http://blog.stereophile.com/cas2010/

We are dealers for Kubala-Sosna, deHavilland, Sonist, Wilson Benesch & Esoteric.

Thanks for posting that link. I didn't think the show was going to be as hugely successful as it was. I had a lot of fun there. My top 3 rooms:

1. DeHavilland: Kara took advantage of a diagonal set-up and analog tape playback to create an exceptional listening experience.

2. Salk Sound: Jim's speakers are incredible values. Great guy too.

3. Tonian Labs: A $6000 system, and that accounts for $5500 speakers, never sounded so good to my ears. It's enough to create a paradigm shift in how we as audiophiles approach evaluating equipment and equating cost with quality sound.

I'd also like to mention the Simplifi Audio room as the most fun experience I ever had at a show.