The best speaker you ever heard?

In my first real component audio system, I had a pair of Lafayette Criterion short floorstanders with HEil tweeter in an all Lafayette system built around a 40 watt integrated (I worked at Lafayette at the time as a poor college kid and got a good deal).

They were my favorites from lafayette at that time due to the unique clarity of the heil, but teh rest was questionable. Also, the heils had a tendency to fry quite easily in that rig. I changed everything less than a year later.

I would like to hear a good modern heil design running off my current system. What I heard back then was probably not indicative of what is possible.

I would have to give the nod to my Bose 901 Series 3. With my Heathkit receiver, these really rocked. By having all midrange drivers, there was a purity that Magicians and Magicpans can't match.

I wonder if the best speaker you've ever heard is about pushing the envelope or being comfortable where you are? Its a very subjective question. All the absolute best speakers I've ever heard are beyond my financial resources. If you are satisfied with what you have, do you care if something else is better?

The best speaker system I ever heard was the ATC 150s with ATC subs we demo'd at a pro audio show with Bill Schnee and Doug Sax (the guys who recorded all those Sheffield Labs discs of years ago). It was in a room treated from the ground up to sound great. The speakers and the room they are in is the speaker "system" together as a team. You will never get the greatest speaker in the world without addressing your room, putting a properly designed speaker in it that does not have dispersion problems or high distortion drive units inside, and then using decent sounding recordings.

Sorry for the strong statement, I am new to Audiogon, I supply high end studio equipment to folks that record, mix and master the records you listen to and evaluate these systems. I have dealing with rooms and speakers for a long time. I deal with people and their systems they work on, all day. The goal in professional music is to spot flaws so they can fix them before you do. The room you record in is key to a great sound. The room you monitor in and the monitors you use are key. If there are flaws in room or monitors, this becomes a flaw in the recording that's there forever. For example, if a monitoring system has poor top end response, you will mix bright to compensate and the final record sounds bright. Same thing about low end, if the room or speakers are bass heavy, you lighten up on the bass in the production process and the record will sound thin without real bass extension. A good monitoring rig is key to this work and something that all top people work to achieve.

So when I hear people say "I tried 4 pairs of speakers and they all sucked", you know its probably the room at play. When they say "I tried this really obscure piece of crap and it sounded wonderful", you know the room they are listening in has some major flaws!

Brad Lunde
Owner of TransAudioGroup

For me it was not even the most expensive speakers that I enjoyed the best. I have heard Focal Grande Utopias and the Wilson Maxx before but they didn't do much for me. The best was Innersound Model 10. I also like Nola and Proac speakers a lot.