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
Hey After_hrs, where do you live, BTW?

The reason I ask is: I once heard the very same combination of Odeon horns driven by Accuphase electronics & Kimber cabling @ a HT place in Coral Springs, FL.
I have to admit that the overall sound was very seductive & romantic. It appealed a lot of my aesthetic senses. Very "palpable" & non-fatiguing. Hrs and hrs could be spent listening to music. It was all about the midrange - almost SET-like.

However, my best is still the M-L Statement E2 (that I posted long ago in this thread) driven by Krell electronics 'cuz it represented a live event in a truer form & it did better justice to the entire freq. spectrum.

Of course, JMHO. FWIW.
The best, for me was the Fulton Premiers. Mssive speakers that had some unique qualities that over all have never been equalled. They had an ability to properly reproduce harmonics and dynamics without any cross distortion. Each instrument, voice, whatever stood alone with its' unique timbre, dynamics and spacial orientaion unfettered by anything else going on in the music. It also was unique in presenting a proper vertical or sizing of the source, something few others could even come close to doing. It went up and down with low distrotion and with quality transients. So what am I using now- the same speakers- 20 years later and laughing at evrthing else that comes along.
They still sound like what music reproduction is all about.
No matter the speaker you prefer, try Bybee purifiers. They seam to deal with "something" that is inherent to electric circuits that results in unnatural sound. If you can pay $10K for speakers you surely can spend $170 for a pair of purifiers. Believe me it can be an ear-opener.
I cant'elieve I am writing this. I listened to the beolab 5 today ( in the store for 2 hours). I haven't heard tha many audiophile speakers, ( 1 Dynaudio temtation for 1/2 hour, B&W Nautilis 802 for 1 hr, Matin logan Aerius for an 1 hr, Dunlavy sc6 for 2 hrs, and my own carver als3)so take this with a huge pinch of salt. These are remarkable speakers and the ones that have most affcted me. Really a wow. This was with B&o upstream components that apperared to be barely better than a flashy walkman. I was more than surprised
The bigger Quads fed from McIntosch electronics. That's beyond my means,so I got the Maggie 1.6 s.