Which speakers did you find bright, fatiguing or just disappointing in some way?

Gday from Australia, hope you're all well. 
I was dissapointed with a set of Tannoy XTF8's.
I found they lacked Bass response. Apart from that, they were ok. I was running them firstly with a Cambridge Audio CXA60, and then a Parasound P6. Same result. 
I sold the Tannoy's for a set of Australian made Transmission Line Speakers, made in Sth. Australia. 
I've kept the Parasound, but have purchased a Primaluna Dialogue Premium preamp. 
Wow, what a difference. 
I should say, I know it's two different types of speakers, also, I upgraded the woofer to a 10inch,versus a 8inch with the Tannoys. 
But in saying that, I was and am absolutely blown by the difference in bass response. 
All the best of health to all of you.. 
Cheers Ricey... 
Greg 7, at first glance, I thought that was a Devo hat...  ..GREAT BAND

Alright, I get the picture. Absolutely any speakers disappoint at least some people, and that's assuming that match with the electronics is correct.
To continue. There are no real good speakers, not invented yet. Speakers are always the weakest link, in this sense. Recording and room too.
It is incredibly difficult to find speakers that don't at least annoy much, in one way or another. 
Listening at moderate levels might help a little.

@adg101,

Over the years I’ve not seen ProAcs getting much flak from users.



@inna,

"Listening at moderate levels might help a little."


It does.

Every single speaker I’ve ever owned began to throw out unacceptable levels of bass and treble distortion on the rare occasions I wanted to turn the volume dial a bit further than usual.

But then I have never owned speakers like the really big Tannoys, JBLs or Klipch’s.
Apparently some fancy clubs in London used to employ Tannoy Westminster’s to get the party swinging.

Or at least they did back when we were all still free.

It is incredibly difficult to find speakers that don’t at least annoy much, in one way or another.

I dont think that my Mission Cyrus are so good and better than the best names people named here...No way... They are good but cannot beat most highly designed speakers... My ols Tannoy were better for example... But why the Mission are so amazing now ?

They had no defect on any count to my ears.... Is it their miraculous design that produce miracles?

Not at all, it is the passive treatment and active controls of my small room...

Save for little cheap box, and some exceptional badly designed speakers, it is the ROOM who kill or ressuscitate speakers...I repeat that because if someone never experience it by himself it is incredible and UNIMAGINABLE...

Some use very,very costly, gear and their sound is bad, fatguing and the timbre unnatural why?

Who really think that a 100,000 bucks speakers are bad? No way, designers at this level are not stupid....


It is the ROOM.....


No speaker can exceed his room, any controlled room can exceed any part of the audio system in potential S.Q.

@mahgister,

"It is the ROOM.....
No speaker can exceed his room, any controlled room can exceed any part of the audio system in potential S.Q."


I'm inclined to agree. My modest music centre did sound pretty good in our old house. My current system is supposedly vastly superior but not as satisfying.

Some of that will be down to me being a lot younger back then and in the early days of discovering the world of rock music courtesy mainly of 2 books (The Illustrated "New Musical Express" Encyclopaedia of Rock and Paul Gambaccini's Critic's Choice: Top 200 Albums).

Even so, some of that must have been down to the room. Perhaps my previous room was a little bit more lively, and that fitted better in with my tastes?


Unfortunately most of us are constrained in the choice of what (size of speakers) we can put into our room nevermind which room we can put them in.

Therefore it's mostly a question of making the best of what we have.

Anyway, point taken, every loudspeaker must be considered in conjunction with the environment it is to be used in.

As someone once said, it is usually a question of placing one box inside another one.

It's bound to have some effect.