The best speaker you ever heard?

for an office system, my sonus faber concertos simply became my friends, not the "best ive ever heard," just simply never got tiresome, and now im trying the dali helicon 300's.... anyone got an opinion on them? so far they seem "more" but not necessarily better... but then for an office system maybe im being really picky.. cheers

Let's not forget stacked Bose 901s!

Will stack my two sets of stacked Bose 901s (Series IV), with Technics Class A amp, Advent (Apt/Holman Design) preamp, high end CD player, and middle road interconnects against almost any speaker competition. I know it defies convention, common sense, science and the state of the art, but I cannot begin to count how many times I've felt embarrassment for friends when we do a listen-to-listen session, with their Wilsons, Magnepans/Magneplanars, Dalis, Veledines, Krell ref subs, Agogees, Klipches, Vandersteens, Avante Gardes, VPMSs, et al. And it doesn't matter the room, acoustics, source material or volume. I look you in the eye and say get the 901s before they are discontinued...the best buy and physics defying phenomenom out there!

Eidolan Diamonds at Goodwin Sound in Waltham Mass. Blew me away.

B&W Nautilus 800's

Just out of curiosity, I went through the list of “best speakers ever heard” and compiled a count of the votes from February 4, 2001 to January 3, 2005.

There are a zillion disclaimers. Here are a few:
1. The process was casual at best (no doubt errors exist.)
2. The threads were quickly scanned; if a clear winner was evident, it was recorded; if there were two speakers that seemed like a clear tie within a thread, both were counted; when more than 2 speakers were considered the best, the thread was ignored. The practical result of this is that some very good speakers probably didn’t get as many votes as they might have.
3. Threads that didn’t seem to have a “best ever speaker” were ignored (some threads just had comments or stories, etc.)
4. Votes for similar models were combined, so in some cases models were lumped together even though there might be slight variations in versions.
5. Sometimes threads recommended a manufacturer, but not a model, so the manufacturer was recorded, but not the model.

If a model (or manufacturer) got one vote it is listed with no number to the right of the model; if it got more than one vote the number of votes is listed to the right of the model.

On the left are the totals for each manufacturer that got 5 or more votes.

There are 175 line item entries (mostly models, but occasionally just manufacturers).

- Before you flame this thread too hard, please see disclaimer #1 above.

If anyone wants to redo the count, you are welcome to have at it.

- PS, I am not drawing any conclusions from this due to the less than rigorously scientific process involved; I'm just adding (no doubt with errors) and reporting. It's just a rough approximation of almost 4 years of people casting votes on this particular forum.

Acapella Exaliburs
ACI Jaguar
ACI Talismans.
Acoustat electrostatic model 4
Aerial Acoustics 8B
Aerial Acoustics 8t
Alón Exotica Grand Reference System
Alon Wolf Magico
8 Apogee
Apogee Diva 3
Apogee Duetta's 2
Apogee Mini Grands
Apogee Scintillas
AR-2Ax
ATC active 100's
ATC SCM 150ASL
ATC SCM300ASL
ATCs
Audio Note ANE SEC Signature
audio note anj/spx
AV Duos
Avalon Eidelon 3
Avalon Osiris
avalon sentinels
10 Avantgarde Duo's 6
Avantgarde Trios 2
Avantgarde Unos 2
Axiom M80TI's
11 B&W 801 5
B&W N802's 3
B&W Nautilus 2
b&w nautilus 800 3
beolab 5
Beveridge Direct Drive Electrotatic 24" Hartley System
bose
Bose 901
C-3
Cabasse Atlantic's
Cabasse MT
Cain & Cain single horns
Cerwin Vega's with bose 901's stacked on top
churhills by tannoy
Clark systems ref
Classic Audio Reproductions
Crosby modified Quad 63's
db design oris 150
Definitive Tech's BP300TL
Diapasons
7 Dunlavy sc iv II 2
Dunlavy SC IV-A's 2
Dunlavy SC-V's
Dunlavy V
Dunlavy VI
Dynaudio Evidence 3
Dynaudio Evidence Temptations
EFE T-60s.
Eidolan Diamonds
Focal JMlab Grande Utopia Be 2
Fulton Premiers
Genesis 1.1
Genesis 200
Genesis 201's
Genesis!
Gershman Acoustics Opera Sauvage
Goldmund Mimesis
Green Mountain Audio 4
Hill Plasmatronic 2
How about Mirage M1's
Hyperion 938s
Imagine Electrostats.
Infinity Prelude MTS
Infinity Reference Standard Beta
Infinity Servo Statics 1-A's
Infinty Beta
Jadis Euritmie
5 JBL 4343s'S
jbl 4412's
JBL K2s
jbl l100
JBL Paragon
5 JM Focal Utopia Be 2
JM Lab Grande Utopia Beryllium
JM Labs Grande Utopia Beryllium's
Jmlab Grand Utopia
Joseph Audio Pearls
Kharma Exquisite Reference 3
6 Klipsch Heresys
Klipschorns! 5
Lab A-1s
Legacy Whispers 4
Levinson HQD 2
Linkwitz dipoles: Pheonix
Linn Komri
Lumen White Light Monitors
Magico
Magneplanar 2
Magneplanar 20.1 2
6 Martin Logan
Martin Logan statement 5
MBL 101d
mirage m5
Mmerlin VSM-M
Montana KAS
Montana WAS 3
Naim Audio DBL
NEAR M15's
Nearfield Acoustic PipeDreams 3
Newtronics Temperence
NHT 3.3
Ocellia Tilias
Odeon horns
Overkill Audio Ovation
7 Piega C-10 Ltd 2
Piega c-40
Piegas p10 4
Polk srt s
Polks srs
PRAM
ProAc'
Proac D25
psb alpha mini.
psb gold i
15 Quad 4
QUAD 57 ESL 2
Quad 57 stacked
Quad 988 4
Quad 989
Quad ESL 57s stacked
Quad ESL 63
quads triple
Radford 360
Revel Salons 4
Rockport Antares 3
Rosinante Dulcinea
S.A.P. J2001
Scintlla
Seas' Thor
Shahinian Diapason
Silverline Audio Sonata's. 2
10 Sonus Faber Amatis 3
sonus faber conc
Sonus Faber Cremonas
Sonus Faber Exremas 3
Sonus Faber Grand Piano's
sonus faber strads
8 Sound Lab A-1 2
Soundlab
SoundLab M-1
Soundlab U-1 4
Spendor S3/5.
stacked DQ10's
Swans 2.2
Talon Khorus 2
Tannoy Churchill
Technical Audio Device Model-1
The Neat Ultimatum
Thiel 3.6s
Thiel 7
Thiel CS6
Tylers acoustics Lynbrook monitors
Vandersteen 5 4
VERITY SARASTRO
5 VMPS RM 5
7 Von Schweikert 4.5 gen III's
Von Schweikert VR 11
Von Schweikert VR5 HSE. 5
11 Wilson Audio Adrenaline
Wilson Audio Grand SLAM
Wilson Audio Wamm 7 2
Wilson Audio WAMMs 2
Wilson Audio Watt/Puppy 3
Wilson Benesch A.C.T. 2
5 Wisdom Adrenaline 75 D's
Wisdom Audio
Wisdom Audio M-75 3