System that sounds so real it is easy to mistaken it is not live

I didn’t read all the responses but here’s my $.02. Of course nothing compares to good quality live music. There are too many steps along the way to reproducing music in our home w/ varying degrees of sound degradation. 
 

For the type of music mentioned, amplified rock w/ guitar, drums, bass guitar , vocals etc, good quality horns powered by tubes is, imo, the way to go if you want close to live sound without spending a fortune on heroicly priced speakers & amps!  Unamplified  music might be better suited for paneled speakers like Magnapans or Martin Logan’s, both for reasonable $. 
 

I own & really enjoy Volti Audio Rivals. They may not be the last word in ultra fine details & crazy frequency extreme extension but for dynamics, big sound stage, very fast & open midrange,  & “live sound” in their price range, tough to beat. A good 20 watts w/ a good source is all they need to sound great. 

Dear @mijostyn : First those UDL by Velodyne came from 1989 and yes that surround foam was terrible for say the least.

You live in your " small world " of your subwoofers and nothing can touch it when the real world has several alternatives even better than Magico as Evolution Acoustics :

M.Lavigne owns the MM 7.

In the other side I owned the Scintilla mated with Entec subs and running with monobloks that puts enough current to handled and amps with over 6db headroom. I never had any troble about and I can’t know for the Diva.

Electrostatic speaker designs is not the " ultimate " speakers as a fact I listened almost all from Stax/ EMT/ ML/ Beveridge , etc, etc and the only one that like me is SL that I listened several times for long time.

Magnepan planar design is really better than your SL paired or not with subs.

Btw, my Velodyne is a way difefrent model ( no foam surrounded the woofers. ) and as I told you are heavy modified including internal bracing but I don’t " care " all those when the reality is that its measured THD is 0.5% that only the Titan is comparable.

Each designer " kills flea in his own way " be Magico, Evolution, Velodyne, HSU, Paradigm, Thiel, ML, , etc, etc.

Btw,, I agree with @lewm transmission line woofer ( everything the same ) can’t be outperformed not even by your four subs or Magico or what ever you could think. Come on mijos youa are better than that.

Your theory about my ADS ( that you never listened in the modified way in my samples. ) are just theory and you can be sure that your SL can’t puts you nearer to the recording than my L2030. Btw, I never said my speakers has no fail or are perfect and I know for sure are not perfect. Period.

Now, you can follow with lewm, don’t you think?

R.

Dear @hifidream  : Thank's to share that experience.

I know think you Own Magnepan 20 along those Kinergetic subs that I knew and listened many times paired with ML electrostatic because the distributor in México was who brougth both names here. Even with the Kinergetics ML never like me. As I told best planar speaker design for me Magnepan and with limited FR the Quad.

R.

dogberry, No one, least of all me, is dismissing full range ESLs. That’s exactly what I listen to in one of my two systems, Sound Lab 845PXs, with no subwoofer. One reason for no subwoofer is my disinclination to clutter up the listening room any further, since it is also our living room where we entertain guests after dinner in the adjoining dining room. Three turntables, front end electronics, the huge 845PXs, and two large monoblock Atma-sphere chassis’ are enough. Other reasons for no subwoof, related to the first, are my own cheapskate nature, the wonderful deep bass I get from the panels with no augmentation, and the fact that I believe I would have to spend quite a lot of money to find a subwoof that can keep up with and blend with an ESL. However, I do not argue with those two guys who describe the putative benefits of a subwoof. In principle, they are correct.  However, I take exception to Mijo's endorsing Doppler Distortion as a compelling mechanism for crossing over at a relatively high frequency (100Hz or higher).  Because I doubt "Doppler Distortion", which is a real thing but not really due to the Doppler Effect, is much of a factor with a huge planar speaker that has a much shorter excursion than does a dynamic speaker and spreads the frequencies among a myriad of unitary panels of different sizes so as to distribute resonance.

Jonwolf, I heard the Volti Audio Rivals at the Capital Audiofest. I thought they were excellent, far better than many much more expensive speakers that I heard at the show. In fact, in many ways I thought they were better than the older big brother Volti speakers at $20K, which were owned by my neighbor and which I heard at length at his house. Good choice.

Thanks Lewm. I heard the Voltis at last year’s Capitol Audiofest in MD & I bought the pair at the show! Don’t need a sub , nice looking, “normal”, well finished boxes that are easy to place & easy to drive. I’ve been very happy with them for a year now. So much fun!