The best speaker you ever heard?


In my opinion, the speaker is by far the most important part of the audio system. After all, it is the only part you hear. OK, the other stuff really matters a lot, but without a great speaker... No go.

I am a bit 'speaker-obsessed' I guess, and now I am wondering: What are the best speakers you have ever heard, and what made them the best?
njonker
Heard most of the mid end speakers including Dynaudios, Totems, Sonus Fabers, Kefs, B&Ws, Spendors, Harbeths, JM Reynauds.

So far the best one i have heard and have decided to keep is the Spendor S3/5. Its a small speaker but it does everything right except for bass. Imaging, layering, soundstaging, tonal accuracy, musicality, etc. etc. Its fantastic. So for me, this is the best speaker I have ever owned.
Wisdom Audio back when they only made one speaker. It was driven by a pair (or maybe a trio, I can't remember) of Classe Omega amps fed by Levinson 39 (via an active crossover). Wow. That was as close to audio nirvana as I've come. Way too expensive for me, but hey, they come out and deliver and set up in your home for that $35,000. What a deal.
You inadvertently raise an interesting point. The original Wisdoms had a much simplier crossover ("brain") which did significantly less processing of the signal than the current unit. The reason for the change was to allow the speaker to sound good in almost any room. In gaining flexibility, it no longer ever sounds great in any room; too many IC's, too much processing.
The Imagine Electrostats.
Like Martin Logan Statements only much more advanced (the transducer foil is made at the Fraunhofer institute in Munich/Germany, by the same guys who make the diamond tweeters for the Avalon Eidolon) and the best news is that the system is only a 3rd of the price of the ML Statement. It is about the price of a Soundlab U1, but look at the Imagine system. Here you definitely have no issues with bass performance, with 4 sub woofers on each side.

http://www.monitor-db.de