The best speaker you ever heard?

Mtkhl567, don't worry about MrT. He has the compulsion to place what I call his mantra, whenever he thinks that the opportunity arises. Best to ignore it.

Me, I'm still happy with my big Sound Labs. (:
For me they are "best".
All the same, I have to agree with Norm. If my ears are still full of the sound of real live music, a cloud of unhappiness settles around selfsame, should I fire up my rig. It is best to wait a while to regain happiness and this has been the same with all the speakers I have or shall still own. And I doubt that even Mike's room and a 10hz reproduction, (which would scare the living daylights out of me by the way, 16hz are already quite scary), would heal my of that occasional affliction. The fate of an audiophile who loves going to concerts.

Detlof, I'm totally with you that there is no speaker system that can reproduce an original event 100% despite some claims to the contrary. Anyone who doesn't think that is the case I would advice to go to a live concert of any kind, but large stadium rock concerts really drives home the point. Some of my favorites live events are:

Pink Floyd at Wembley Stadium, The Nelson Mandela concerts in same stadium, Guns n Roses at Feynoord Stadium Rotterdam. I think the difference was probably the amount of adrenaline rushing through my blood helped by a healthy dose of expectation, weed and/or alcohol. Irreproducible.

But since I don't have that expectation from my system, I am quite happy with what it can do. And occasionally, when the wife and kids are away, the volume ... ahum the pleasure control ... can go up and brighten those amp eyes to the max. That can get my adrenaline going a bit, but its a long way off from real live. I'm already happy when music played through my speakers gives me goosbumps ... that's all I expect of my system to do very very well. And it does, very often!

To all audiophiles out there, the goosbump test is the only real "objective" one out there IMHO. You need to be in the right state of mind, but if you are, and there are no goosbumps, then continue your search...

Detlof, i agree that 'live' music can humble reproduced music.....but not always. in fact; the odds are dramatically against 'live' music sounding very good at all in most venues. either too loud, or lacking focus, or not in balance, or bad listening position, or outdoors and lots of issues. 75% of live music have at least some of those issues in my experience. our brains can compensate for sound problems and we can still be swept along with the live performance.

OTOH the 'live music experience' cannot be duplicated in our homes.

there are a few local Jazz clubs and smaller recital halls which do offer consistently excellent live music performance.

regarding 10hz; my experience is that 10hz which has distortion is lethal and a bit scary; but 10hz which is controlled and effortless is really wonderful. it's more a feeling than something you hear. recently i made some adjustments to speaker placement and my bass settings which made subtle but significant improvements to my bass accuracy. it made a huge difference in the coherence of deep bass.....which allowed my body to stop tensing up when i knew that very deep bass was coming.

aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......music.

"aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......music"
How right you are.........
That's happiness.

Guys, I made a response earlier and either somehow forgot to send it or had it blocked. It was primarily a response to Mike, saying why I found all speakers I have listen to to be compromises and that what I want and will never get, is a point source, fully range, no crossover, high efficiency speaker. Until then I have to choose which of the above are more important to me. After years of single drivers with high efficiency, I am back to a two way with a very limited crossover but lacking the efficiency that I would prefer, forcing me to sell my Reimyo PAT777.

I will forego my previous comments about the H-Cat amp other than to say it makes me realize that electronics may be equally compromised as speakers.

Any way, as others have said, I have adjusted to the reality that I have to be happy with great performances and something close to realism.